County homicides up in 2007

Published 11:17 pm Sunday, January 13, 2008

EVERETT — Drugs and young people with access to guns fueled a number of homicides in Snohomish County last year.

In 2007, there were 18 confirmed homicides reported by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office. There were 15 in 2006.

Snohomish County prosecutors say they are seeing a spike in cases related to last year’s violence and expect to spend a lot of time in murder trials during 2008.

On her desk, chief criminal deputy prosecutor Joan Cavagnaro has compiled a list of 24 defendants accused of murders, serious assaults and driving deaths. Fourteen of the defendants are accused of either first- or second-degree murder; three are charged with giving drugs to people who died.

“I can’t remember a time when we had so many,” said Cavagnaro, a 25-year office veteran.

Many of the homicides last year were drug-related shootings.

A double homicide in July at a sophisticated marijuana growing operation in Everett became the first solid evidence that violence associated with the Canadian pot trade has arrived in Washington, drug experts said. The same organized criminals responsible for Canada’s multibillion-dollar “B.C. Bud” marijuana industry appear to be moving into the area, according to Dave Rodriguez, director of the federally funded Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program in Seattle.

“Once you talk about organized crime, you’re talking about violence and drugs,” Rodriguez said. “With marijuana we’re seeing more organized groups and more violence. That showed itself in B.C. As the grows expanded, so did the violence.”

Linda Nguyen, 20, and her boyfriend Kevin Meas, 23, were paid to take care of an indoor marijuana growing operation at a house in the 600 block of Dexter Avenue. Investigators believe the two were shot to death by two men who thought there was up to $40,000 in cash inside the house. Earlier this month Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Janice Ellis announced that she won’t seek the death penalty for the two Tacoma men accused of gunning down the couple.

She warned that the community could see more violence with the increase in indoor marijuana growing operations.

“There’s no question that the culture of drug use also facilitates a culture of violence,” Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz said. “It’s not only homicides but assaults and other criminal activity.”

There were 10 confirmed homicides in Everett in 2007, more than double the number from the year before, according to the medical examiner’s office.

While killings were up, Everett police haven’t been able to find any sort of pattern, Goetz said. There were domestic-violence-related homicides, including an elderly married couple whom investigators determined fatally shot each other. There also were some homicides where police haven’t been able to find a motive, Goetz said.

“We don’t think any were random,” he said. “It appears based on our investigations there was some link or association between the parties.”

Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives investigated six new homicides last year, according to the medical examiner’s office. Half of those victims were 19 years old or younger. The suspects in those cases also are young people, major crimes Sgt. Shawn Stich said.

“I’m amazed at how these suspects are younger and younger and more violent,” he said. “These kids aren’t settling their disputes with fistfights. They’re using guns. To me, that’s concerning.”

The leading cause of homicidal death in the county continued to be gunshot wounds. A dozen people were shot to death here last year. Three people were beaten to death, one woman was strangled and one man died of stab wounds.

The total for last year doesn’t include pending cases in which the cause of death hasn’t been confirmed, said Carolyn Sanden, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. People who died in car crashes that resulted in vehicular homicide charges also aren’t included in the number of homicides for the year. The same is true of those who died in drug overdoses, even though prosecutors may have filed controlled substance homicide charges.

Nearly 80 percent of the victims were men. Five homicides happened in March. No homicides were reported in February, September or November.

The youngest victim, Hailey Preslar of Snohomish, was a month shy of her second birthday.

Hailey died May 23 from fatal brain injuries. Prosecutors allege that her mother’s boyfriend caused the girl’s death by shaking her. He has been charged with second-degree murder.

Half of the county’s homicide victims were under the age of 25.

Albert Beasley, 87, was the oldest homicide victim. He was found with severe head injuries inside his Everett house. He died a week later on Dec. 28, the last reported homicide of 2007. Prosecutors allege that Beasley’s grandson beat him with the blunt end of an ax.

Countywide, all but one 2007 homicide have been solved.

No one has been arrested in connection with the June 27 death of Jose Gutierrez-Martinez. The 24-year-old man was shot to death outside an apartment on W. Casino Road. Witnesses told Everett detectives Gutierrez-Martinez went to the apartment to buy drugs.

The county’s prosecutors and public defenders are stretching resources to keep up with the violent cases they’ll face this year.

“Every senior deputy (prosecutor) has a homicide, and even less experienced deputies have a homicide,” Cavagnaro said.

Many of those cases will go to court this year.

“We kind of joked around here that we’ll be having district court deputies (with little trial experience) getting them soon,” said Helene Blume, who heads the office’s Violent Unit.

The public defenders also are feeling the pinch.

“We try to assign (homicide cases) to the more experienced lawyers and we’re running out of more experienced lawyers,” said Bill Jaquette, who heads the Snohomish County Public Defender Association.

Jaquette recently tried to remove a case load from his top assistant, Susan Gaer, so she could help manage the other attorneys who handle felony cases.

“Just the other day I had to give her one of the murder cases,” Jaquette said.

Not all criminal defendants qualify for a public defender, but a lot do.

His office also is dealing with a record number of felony cases filed by prosecutors in 2007, about 2,770. That’s 560 more than in 2006, Jaquette said.