EVERETT — King County Prosecutors charged a 43-year-old Bothell man with first-degree murder after he waited for 40 minutes before allegedly shooting his wife several times as she left a mutual friend’s home in Shoreline. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday morning in King County Superior Court, according to King County Prosecutors’ Office spokesperson Douglas Wagoner in an email.
Around 1:30 a.m. Oct. 27, a friend was walking the victim back to her car after she visited his apartment. As he was walking back, he allegedly heard three to four gunshots and the woman screaming, court documents said. When she did not answer his call, he called 911.
Six minutes later, King County deputies responded to the 911 call reporting gunshots in the 20100 block of Whitman Avenue North. More gunshots were reported two minutes after the initial call, court documents said.
Upon arrival, deputies found a woman with multiple gunshot wounds partially hanging out of the driver’s door of a truck registered to the victim and her husband. Law enforcement recovered 11 bullet casings at the scene, nine of which were from the passenger side of the vehicle and two from the driver’s side.
Deputies also observed bullet holes through the passenger side window, court documents said.
First responders pronounced the woman dead at the scene.
The 911 caller, a mutual friend of the couple, told law enforcement the victim was experiencing ongoing marital issues and that she no longer wanted to be with her husband, court documents said. A couple of hours before the incident, the friend overheard a phone call between the couple, where the suspect allegedly said that “he was going to kill her,” court documents said.
The couple’s daughter told detectives her mother had told her father she was leaving him a week prior, court documents said. During the interview, the daughter received a call from the suspect’s sister in Mexico, who told her the suspect called her and said he just made the “worst mistake of his life.”
Both the daughter and the friend informed detectives that the suspect drives a white company van with his company’s name on it, court documents said.
Around 5 a.m., the suspect arrived at the scene and denied knowing what happened to the victim, court documents said. He told detectives that he had walked to the apartment complex from his job site when she had not called him back.
Surveillance footage obtained by law enforcement showed a similar vehicle to the suspect’s parking nearby 40 minutes before the shooting and leaving shortly after the incident, court documents said.
Around 12:30 p.m., law enforcement received a call from the suspect’s neighbor, who said the suspect was at his house and allegedly wanted to confess, court documents said. A Snohomish County deputy transported the suspect to a nearby precinct, where law enforcement interviewed him.
During the interview, he confessed to shooting the victim through the truck’s passenger window before retrieving more ammo from his truck and shooting her several more times, court documents said. He told detectives, “he did not know why he shot her more because she was already dead,” court documents said.
Detectives were able to locate the gun based on the suspect’s confession at the Holyrood Cemetery, court documents said.
His next court date is a pre-trial hearing at 1 p.m. Nov. 18 in King County Superior Court.
Jenna Millikan: 425-339-3035; jenna.millikan@heraldnet.com; X: @JennaMillikan
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