LYNNWOOD — Police are taking another crack at a decades-old unsolved armored car heist in Lynnwood that left one man dead and another gravely injured.
The daylight robbery happened Feb. 19, 1991, outside the Fred Meyer store along 196th Street SW.
Two suspects were lying in wait for a Loomis car to make a cash delivery. The men were armed with 9 mm semiautomatic weapons.
“They shot first and went from there,” a police spokesman said at the time.
Killed was the car’s driver, Peter Berg, 48, of Redmond. The car’s guard, Jeffrey Pease, then 33, of Edmonds, suffered multiple gunshot wounds.
The robbers made off with more than $20,000.
Recently, Pease reached out to The Herald’s news partner, KIRO-TV, Channel 7, and asked it to look into the case. Pease told KIRO that his quality of life never recovered because of the severity of his wounds.
The day of the shooting, police scoured the area, and found the getaway car, but no arrests ever were made. Over the years, detectives have received calls and tips about the case, but nothing has led to a suspect, Lynnwood police Cmdr. Jim Nelson said this week.
Lynnwood has a handful of unsolved homicide cold cases, Nelson said. Their cold cases are never closed but looked at as resources permit.
Since the KIRO coverage, the Loomis case was reassigned to a detective, Nelson said. That detective is tasked with bringing the case file up to date and re-examining the collected evidence.
Some people already have been reinterviewed, Nelson said.
“We’re looking to see if there’s anything new, anything we missed,” he said.
The potential also exists for fresh DNA matches, which have led to arrests and charges in other cold-case homicides in Snohomish County in recent years.
Evidence in the Loomis case was last submitted for DNA testing in the late 1990s, Nelson said. Investigators believe new testing could yield answers unavailable back then, because of significant scientific advances.
“We’re hopeful some of this new attention will encourage someone to come forward who has new information,” Nelson said.
“It could be the small missing piece that puts this thing together.”
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
Help solve the crime
The Feb. 19, 1991, homicide during the robbery of an armored car in Lynnwood remains unsolved. The suspects at the time were described as two white men in their mid-20s. One wore a blue and white plaid jacket, the other an olive green jacket. They drove off in a maroon 1970s sports convertible but abandoned it a short distance away. They may have fled from there in a white pickup.
Police ask anyone with information to call 425-670-5669.
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