4th suspect arrested in Arlington, Mukilteo torture killings

Published 1:30 am Friday, August 3, 2018

MUKILTEO — A fourth suspect has been arrested in connection with the torture killings of two men in Snohomish County.

The girlfriend of Hassani Hamadi Hassani was booked into jail Wednesday for investigation of rendering criminal assistance. She’s accused of providing an alibi and cleaning supplies to Hassani and two friends, to cover up her boyfriend’s alleged role in the deaths.

The body of Mohamed Adan was discovered July 1, in the brush at Blue Stilly Park near Arlington. He was 21. He’d been burned with cigarettes and severely beaten, before he was shot twice in the foot and five times in the chest with a .22-caliber pistol.

A second body was found July 3, at a derelict building on Beverly Park Road in Mukilteo. An autopsy showed Ezekiel Kelly had 27 stab wounds and he’d been shot three times in the head. He was 22.

Security footage captured the license plate of a red Saturn near the Blue Stilly crime scene. The car was registered to the girlfriend of Anthony Hernandez-Cano, 18, according to police reports filed in court. He had been booked into jail the preceding week for violating a no-contact order with the woman.

Police interviewed them both. Hernandez-Cano told police he had grudges with the two victims. He admitted he shot Adan to death and tortured Kelly, according to the police reports. His girlfriend is accused of driving with them to the crime scenes. Hernandez-Cano told police that Hassani and Hassani’s girlfriend were in the car with them.

Hassani, 20, reportedly admitted to police after they’d stabbed Kelly many times, Hernandez-Cano handed him a gun and told him to “finish it” at the abandoned building in Mukilteo, according to court papers.

Three suspects were arrested in July.

At first Hassani’s girlfriend told police he’d been home all day with her July 2. Later she gave a different story of how he came home, left, came home again and left.

This week, police found security footage from their apartment complex in Mukilteo. It called her story into question. One of the people seen on camera while helping to clean the vehicle had the same clothes and build as her.

Detectives confronted her with the footage. She denied being the woman in the video and refused to answer questions. Police booked her into jail Wednesday night.

Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.