Man sentenced to over nine years in prison for death of Everett woman

EVERETT — Snohomish County Superior Court Judge William Steffener sentenced Jamel Alexander, accused of stomping an Everett woman to death in 2019, to over nine years in prison Monday.

This comes after the 35-year-old pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Sept. 23, two years after his initial first-degree murder conviction was overturned and nearly six years after Shawna Brune’s, 29, body was discovered near a parking lot off the 11600 block of Highway 99.

Around 9:22 a.m. Oct. 12, 2019, a man walking his dog found Brune nude with shoeprints across her body.

Security footage showed Brune entering the woods nearby Cedar Creek Apartments 12 hours earlier with a man, who detectives later identified as Alexander, wearing a maroon Puma jacket, a knit cap with an Oakland Raiders logo and Vans shoes. Thirty-two minutes later, Alexander left the complex alone, court documents said.

At the scene, Alexander’s DNA and Brune’s blood were found on the knit cap. His DNA was also on some of Brune’s clothes and her body, prosecutors said. Police noted the shoes’ tread pattern throughout the crime scene matched the Vans-type shoes Alexander appeared to be wearing in the security footage.

Later that night, Alexander entered a convenience store. While in line, Alexander looked down at the stained red splotches on his shoes. A crime lab tested the convenience store’s carpet for Brune’s blood, but none was found.

During a police interview, Alexander identified the shoes and jacket as his and claimed the clothes could be found in his apartment. Authorities were unable to find any of the clothes. Alexander told detectives he had paid Brune for sex but repeatedly claimed he did not harm her and that Brune was alive when he left.

In 2021, a jury convicted Alexander of first-degree murder. A judge sentenced him to nearly 29 years in prison. At the time, his defense attorneys argued that evidence suppressed in the first trial would have led to jurors acquitting Alexander.

In April 2023, the appellate court held that the excluded evidence — someone else allegedly admitting to the murder and a diary entry dated the day of Brune’s death — should have been heard by jurors. That excluded evidence led to the state Court of Appeals overturning Alexander’s conviction.

At the scene, police found Brune’s diary in her purse. In an entry dated the night of her murder, there appeared to be a handwritten note dated at 10 p.m. — after Alexander was seen leaving the area.

The final entry read:

“I went to Rocky’s for the first time. He thinks it was me that took his (expletive), but I can tell Casey doesn’t think so and is trying to get me back.”

A week after her body was found, Brune’s boyfriend told police he ran into two people who lived in the same apartment complex as them and sold drugs to Brune. One of them allegedly described beating her to death in great detail. Brune’s body was found on the trail that led to that apartment.

During the original trial, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Appel excluded the testimony as hearsay based on the fact that the woman who allegedly made the statements refused to testify, making her unavailable for cross-examination.

After reviewing 15½ hours of security footage from the apartment complex, detectives said three men appeared near the trail where Brune’s body was discovered. Police made a copy of the footage from 8 to 10 p.m., but when they attempted to locate additional footage, it was lost.

After the second trial resulted in a hung jury, Alexander’s charges were lessened, said the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office Chief of Staff Michael Held. In court documents, Alexander stated he pled guilty to the amended charge to “receive the benefit of the proposed plea bargain.”

At Alexander’s sentence hearing Monday, Steffener heard statements from Brune’s family, including a brother, Jarred Haughey.

“Your Honor, Jamel is quoted in court documents as saying he pled guilty to the amended charge of murder in the second degree, to quote, ‘receive the benefit of the proposed plea bargain.’ The benefit, a positive outcome, advantage, or helpful result of an action or thing,” Haughey said. “This is not a positive outcome for my family, Your Honor. Shawna is dead. The only positive outcome would be to impose the maximum sentence that murder carries.”

Steffener heard statements from Alexander’s family and representatives, including his mother, Melanie Alexander.

“My son, if he would have done it, he would have said he’s done it,” she said. “Anything that he has done in the past, he’s never not said he didn’t do it. So, I know for a fact that my son didn’t do it.”

Prior to Steffener’s decision, Alexander spoke to the court.

“I’ve been fighting this case for six years, and it has been heavy. It has been terrifying, horrific,” Alexander said. “It has been traumatizing. It has been ripping me apart, day by day. Nobody, and when I say nobody, nobody will understand what I’ve been through. Nobody understands the empathy that I have but cannot express because I was fighting for my life, for the family.”

Steffener sentenced Alexander to 113 months for murder in the second degree. Upon release, Alexander will serve 36 months of community custody.

Before he announced his decision, Steffener addressed Alexander.

“If the only things this court were to consider were the facts of the crime, this case would most certainly warrant a mid to high-end sentence because of the brutality of stomping a human life to death,” Steffener said. “That is not the only facts that the court has to consider.”

The standard sentence range for this level of offense is 144 to 244 months and 36 months of community custody upon release, court documents said. As a class A felony, the maximum sentence is life with a fine of $50,000. Prosecutors recommended 125 months of custody.

“Mr. Alexander is not sitting in that chair because he’s African American. He’s not sitting in that chair because the system overrode him,” prosecutor Bob Langbehn said. “There is real racism in this country and in the legal justice system. There needs to be a reckoning among us all to recognize the fallibility of human nature and to recognize that we have failed people of color, but you heard the evidence in this case. Mr. Alexander is not sitting there because he’s African American. He’s sitting there because he murdered Shawna Brune.”

The defense recommended 120 months in consideration of the five months Alexander was out of custody on a GPS monitoring system.

“It is heartbreaking that anyone should be murdered in such a brutal way as Shawna,” defense attorney Rachel Forde said. “It’s also heartbreaking that police should fail in such a spectacular way so as to not preserve important evidence that ultimately allowed the real killer to go free.”

Due to Alexander’s income being under the poverty level for the last six years, Steffener waived legal financial obligations. Restitution will be decided at a later date.

Jenna Millikan: 425-339-3035; jenna.millikan@heraldnet.com; X: @JennaMillikan