Skagit rampage suspect had troubled youth

Published 3:40 pm Thursday, September 4, 2008

ALGER — Neighbors remember the man accused in this week’s deadly shooting rampage in rural Washington as a boy who struggled through adolescence and was later diagnosed with serious mental illness and showed disturbing signs of violence.

As investigators worked to sort through eight crime scenes in and around this Skagit County town of fewer than 100 people, Isaac Zamora’s friends and family recounted his history of mental illness and run-ins with the law.

More than 100 investigators — including what Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Mark Roe called an “all-star team of homicide detectives” — were working today to quickly process the bloody crime scenes where six people were killed and four injured on Tuesday.

Zamora, 28, was ordered held Wednesday on $5 million bail for investigation of murder and attempted murder.

The attacks began Tuesday afternoon close to the home of his mother near Alger, about 50 miles north of Everett. They continued amid a high-speed police pursuit on I-5 and ended in Mount Vernon, about 20 miles south of Alger, when Zamora surrendered at a sheriff’s office.

Skagit County deputy coroner Bob Clark identified the dead Thursday as Skagit County sheriff’s deputy Anne Jackson, 40, and Chester M. Rose, 58, both shot at the same location near Alger; two construction workers who were found shot nearby, David Thomas Radcliffe, 57, and Gregory Neil Gillum, 38, both of Mount Vernon; Julie A. Binschus, 48, of Sedro-Woolley, who was found a few houses away; and a motorist, Leroy Lange, 64, of Methow, who was shot and killed along the freeway.

Four other people, including a state trooper, suffered gunshot wounds or stabbings. Authorities say they have not determined a reason for the rampage.

Zamora had been admitted several times to hospitals for mental health treatment and attempted suicide several times, his friends and family said.

After the family’s home burned down when he was 14, a doctor diagnosed him as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder but said his problems would likely subside after puberty, his mother, Dennise Zamora, told a Seattle newspaper.

But in the past five years, Zamora has been in and out of courtrooms, accused of malicious mischief, drug possession and theft, and was last released from jail about a month ago after serving six months for cocaine possession.

Zamora’s record includes about 50 court cases in Washington state, the Skagit Valley Herald reported. Most were misdemeanors ranging from driving on a suspended license to possession of marijuana, but eight cases were felonies, including three before he turned 18.

In 2007, he was convicted of malicious mischief for throwing a cement block at a neighbor’s car. “Isaac Zamora was mad because I didn’t go hiking with him, he has anger and mental health issues,” the neighbor, Steven Schnur, wrote in court records.

Ex-girlfriend Connie Hickman, who met Zamora in 2000 when they both worked at a health care facility, told a Seattle newspaper that he had a lot of promise, but signs of trouble kept recurring. Hickman said his growing volatility eventually led her to take out protection orders and leave the state, and that she has had no contact with him for about three years.

He made threats and started fights over “things that never happened,” Hickman said. She initially blamed his drinking and drug use, but then he was diagnosed with both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and told her at one point he was hearing voices.

In 2003, Hickman and Dennise Zamora took him to a Whatcom County hospital, saying they feared for their safety. He was held involuntarily for a few weeks of treatment and then released.

“The night after he was released, he called me and said, ‘I want to go back,’ ” she recalled. But when he showed up again at the hospital, it declined to admit him. The reason why is unclear, but state rules concerning uninsured treatment for mental illness can be difficult to negotiate for patients and their families.

Eventually, he was admitted to another hospital. During that stay, court records show he bit an orderly who was trying to restrain him. Criminal charges were filed, but later dropped.

“The next day, they discharged him,” Hickman said. “How could they put him out on the streets when it was obvious the man had some issues?”

She said he was given a prescription for medicine but didn’t take it because he didn’t have a job and couldn’t pay for it.