EVERETT — A jury found an 85-year-old landlord guilty Tuesday for the fatal shooting of one of his tenants.
Lloyd Richmond, of Everett, was charged last year with second-degree murder in the killing of Justin Allan, 49, who was renting one of five rooms in Richmond’s home at the time of his death.
Closing arguments were held Friday in the defendant’s monthlong jury trial in Snohomish County Superior Court. It took a jury less than 1½ days to reach their verdict of guilty as charged, convicting Richmond of second-degree murder.
“Ultimately, it was a lot of hard work by everybody who was involved that led to, what I believe, was a just result,” deputy prosecutor Bob Hendrix told The Daily Herald.
Hendrix said Snohomish County detective Nathan Smith and deputy prosecutor Sarah Johnson were “invaluable” in reaching the conviction.
Defense attorney Stephen Ritchie said he respected the jury’s verdict. However he was disappointed with the outcome.
“It’s a really sad situation for everybody involved,” Ritchie said. “We do believe there were significant examples of reasonable doubt in this case. … One of the residents of the home’s DNA was mixed in the pool of blood in the driveway that did not belong to Richmond.”
Before his death in 2021, Allan lived in Richmond’s home at 8800 block of Del Campo Way in Everett, according to charging papers.
On the afternoon of Aug. 28, neighbors reported overhearing an argument between Richmond and a tenant, the charges say, followed by three distinct “pops” that sounded like gunshots.
One neighbor looked out his kitchen window, he reported, to see what the commotion was about. The neighbor told police that Richmond generally moved slowly, but moved “quicker than normal” that afternoon.
The neighbor reportedly saw Richmond get a gray tarp, wrap a “mound”-like object in the driveway and load it into the bed of his Dodge pickup with a winch, Hendrix wrote. The neighbor described the wrapped-up item as “human-sized and heavy-looking.”
The next day, the neighbor saw Richmond use a ratchet to move the mound from the Dodge to a red Chevy Trailblazer, shut the hatch and drive away at about 12:30 p.m., according to the charges. The neighbor reportedly did not see Richmond again until 8 p.m.
Meanwhile, Allan went missing. The last time anybody heard from the man was Aug. 28.
Richmond was arrested the next week. Detectives found a red stain in Richmond’s driveway, the charges say, and its contents tested positive for blood.
Richmond was charged with the murder of Allan, while the body was still missing.
On Oct. 1 of that year, police found Allan’s remains in Kittitas County. The Kittitas County coroner classified his cause of death as homicide and the manner as a gunshot wound.
Richmond remained in custody this week with bail set at $1.2 million. His sentencing hearing was scheduled for Dec. 14.
Ellen Dennis: 425-339-3486; ellen.
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