MUKILTEO — A week after a robbery and gunfire brought terror to a quiet tree-lined Mukilteo neighborhood, police have arrested a suspect.
On the morning of Oct. 8, a 30-year-old Mukilteo man allegedly held up two women with a black and silver semiautomatic handgun in the 5300 block of 92nd Street SW.
“I want your wallets. Give me your wallet,” he reportedly said, according to an arrest report.
He racked the handgun’s slide, discharging a live bullet, court papers say.
Neither woman had their wallets on them, though. One offered her iPhone 7.
He took it and ran, according to documents.
The women said they then heard a loud bang, possibly a gunshot.
A family with a 2-year-old boy told police that the suspected robber shot at them while they were in their vehicle. They were stopped at the intersection of 53rd Avenue W and 92nd Street SW when they saw the alleged mugging, according to court papers. As they drove away, they said the suspect took aim and fired.
Police couldn’t find any bullet indentations, but did recover a spent casing from the street. They also found a live bullet nearby.
The suspect reportedly kept running. He pointed his gun at another couple, before getting into an Acura TL, witnesses reported.
Another person later reported getting robbed just 15 minutes before the women were mugged, by a similar looking person at the Jack in the Box on Harbour Pointe Boulevard SW and Highway 525. The suspect attempted to grab a man through the open crack of a car window, according to the arrest report. When the man rolled up the window, pinching the suspect, the suspect ran to his car, an Acura, and drove away.
Potential leads appeared to dry up, until six days later, when a sex worker met with detectives at the Mukilteo Police Department.
She said she met with the suspect at the Angel of the Winds Casino. He appeared to match the description of the man involved in the earlier robberies. He drove an Acura and he reportedly showed the woman a black and silver handgun, she explained to police.
As they parted ways, she said she asked him for gas money. He obliged, and allegedly said he got it by robbing people in Mukilteo, the woman recalled.
Later, the man sent the sex worker a picture of himself. His face was covered with a white ski mask, and he wore a red and blue hoody — what he called his “work clothes.” The woman told police she assumed he meant to rob more people.
Detectives worked with the casino’s security team to identify the man. And they reportedly obtained security footage of him at a gas station that he might have been trying to rob, a detective wrote.
On Wednesday, police arrested the suspect in the parking lot of La Quinta Inn on 128th Street in Everett. He said he didn’t remember taking part in any robberies, and that he recently began using methamphetamine. He also denied having a firearm.
A records check showed the man previously was convicted of felony malicious mischief and no longer had the right to posess a firearm.
The man was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of two counts of first-degree robbery, three counts of first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
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