MARYSVILLE — Before she died last month, the woman said she was going to court to get paperwork to evict her son from her Marysville home.
It’s unlikely she made it, prosecutors wrote.
Laura Granum’s body was found that day in the trunk of her car, which was parked outside her house on 48th Avenue NE. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office determined she died from blunt force trauma and classified her death as a homicide. She was 62.
The man she reportedly was trying to evict, Nathan Wayne Granum, 28, was charged June 25 in Snohomish County Superior Court with second-degree murder. He remained jailed Wednesday with bail set at $1 million.
According to charging papers, Nathan Granum and his mother had been fighting for some time. The suspect reportedly has paranoid schizophrenia.
On June 25, Nathan Granum’s brother, who also lived at the house, noticed their mother was missing. He asked where she was. According to the brother, Nathan Granum was acting nervous and sweating. “Don’t worry about it,” he reportedly said. He told his brother to go back inside because he was still working out, according to charging papers.
Afterward, the brother noticed their mother’s Kia Optima was parked in an unusual spot in the driveway, backed up to the garage door — typically where a dumpster had been sitting. Next to the trunk was a handcart with blood on it, the brother reported.
He opened the trunk. Inside was his mother’s body. He called to her, but she didn’t respond.
The brother called 911. Marysville officers soon arrived and almost immediately detained the suspect, who had dried blood on his face, the palms of his hands and his shoes.
Detectives noted Laura Granum had swelling on her face, specifically her eyes, and a significant wound above her right eyebrow.
“These injuries appeared to be obviously unnatural to the detectives, and the likely results of some type of physical force,” prosecutors wrote.
At the Marysville Police Department, Nathan Granum reportedly agreed to a recorded interview. In it, he mentioned “he heard voices for years telling him mean things and that someone should kill his mother,” prosecutors wrote. He reported he was mad at her for selling his deceased father’s belongings and for attempting to sell the home.
According to prosecutors, Nathan Granum said he was afraid of being homeless but that he never harmed his mother. He allegedly claimed it was terrorists or hit men who killed her, not him. When asked how those other people killed her, Nathan Granum reported “they beat her to death and stomped on her.” He allegedly said he had blood on him because he wiped his hands with a bloody rag.
“The defendant had no emotional response to hearing that his mother was dead,” prosecutors wrote.
After obtaining a search warrant, detectives went back to the house. They noted two different types of shoe prints in the blood that were similarly sized. One appeared to match the shoes Nathan Granum was wearing when he was arrested. The other set apparently belonged to a pair of black Nike tennis shoes found in his bedroom. The shoes still had blood on them when detectives took them in for evidence.
A bloody palm print matching the suspect’s also was found on the trunk of the Kia Optima.
One neighbor told a detective that Laura Granum had recently mentioned she was selling the house and moving somewhere else. Nathan Granum would not be moving with her, she reportedly told the neighbor.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
