Man’s death remains a mystery

Published 9:36 pm Wednesday, January 13, 2010

EVERETT — Police know that Forrest Frownfelter died in an Everett parking garage from two gunshot wounds to the chest.

Detectives are having a harder time determining if the Marysville-area man, 76, was the victim of a crime or took his own life.

“While we have the cause of death, we have not definitively determined the manner of death,” Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz said.

In other words, investigators still are trying to decide whether the shooting was an accident, a homicide or something Frownfelter did to himself.

Frownfelter was found about 5 a.m. Jan. 3 in a parking garage beneath the Everett Senior Center.

Someone had called 911 from a nearby pay phone to report the death but didn’t wait around for police to show up, according to a search warrant affidavit filed Jan. 5. The call later was tracked to a homeless man who since has been arrested on unrelated charges.

Police said they found the Korean War veteran and peace activist on the concrete with a pillow under one leg. It appeared to investigators that someone had gone through the former school teacher’s pants pockets.

Detectives later recovered a firearm, Goetz said. It wasn’t found in the garage, but Goetz declined to say how or where the weapon was found.

Frownfelter’s relatives told police he usually carried at least $200 cash in his wallet, but sometimes would keep $1,000 in his pocket. It’s unclear if police recovered Frownfelter’s wallet. He was known to keep a weapon with him.

An investigation led police to the homeless man who reportedly found Frownfelter and later called police.

The homeless man, 61, told his son, “I had somebody die in my arms,” police said.

He was sleeping in a pickup truck in the garage the morning Frownfelter died. The loud sounds of Frownfelter’s large diesel-powered truck woke the homeless man up.

When the homeless man got out of his pickup, he saw Frownfelter fall out of his truck and slump to the ground. The homeless man told his son Frownfelter said, “Just let me die.”

Police since have interviewed the homeless man. On Wednesday detectives weren’t ready to detail what he said, Goetz said.

The garage did have surveillance cameras, but they only captured live images and no video was recorded, police said.

People close to Frownfelter described him to police as a man prone to anger who also struggled with a variety of health problems, some of which affected his behavior. He’d recently been banned from the senior center.

Others knew him as a war veteran and member of an anti-war group called Veterans for Peace.

Fellow group member Cliff Wells of Lynnwood described Frownfelter as friendly and positive.

The two lost touch for a while before they reconnected in 2006. That’s when Frownfelter told Wells he had just returned from Costa Rica, where he had bypass surgeries.

Frownfelter looked 20 years younger, Wells said.

Frownfelter was passionate about political issues, especially the war in Iraq, Wells said. He wanted wars to end and once was arrested at rallies along with other protestors, Wells said.

Years ago, Frownfelter was a teacher in the South St. Paul School District in Minnesota. Bob Luna of St. Paul remembers taking an architectural drafting class taught by Frownfelter more than 25 years ago.

He cared about his students and made sure they were learning, Luna said. Everyone liked him.

“I really respected him. I thought he was a very good teacher,” he said.

Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437, jholtz@heraldnet.com.