KENT — Leta Kay Kiesz didn’t want her estranged husband to know where she lived, so she agreed to meet him at a restaurant Sunday night.
She never returned home.
Leta Kiesz, 44, was found shot to death Monday night in the Lake Meridian Marketplace parking lot in Kent.
Her husband, Douglas Leroy Kiesz, 60, of Mill Creek has been arrested in connection with his wife’s murder, police said.
The Mill Creek man, a former police officer, is expected to make his initial court appearance today in King County South District Court in Kent.
Relatives, including a daughter, who had been looking for Leta Kiesz since Sunday night found her body sitting upright in the driver’s seat in her red Jeep Grand Cherokee. The doors were locked.
By the time her body was discovered, Kirkland police had already committed Douglas Kiesz for a mental evaluation at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
It is unclear how Kiesz initially came into contact with Kirkland police, but when he did he told them he had "hurt" his wife. Police said he wouldn’t go into detail. He then made suicidal comments to the Kirkland officers and was voluntarily committed.
Kiesz was arrested Monday night at Harborview.
According to family members, the couple’s divorce was nearly final. Leta Kiesz was happy, but Douglas Kiesz was not.
Leta Kiesz was a real estate agent who had bought a new house in Covington two weeks ago. Since moving to south King County, she had begun attending New Life Church in Renton, where her funeral will be held on Saturday, pastors said.
The couple’s two daughters told KOMO-TV that their mother was as happy as she had ever been. She was supposed to meet her daughters Sunday night at her new home to put up Christmas decorations. When she didn’t show up, they called police.
"It’s so hard being a daughter and hearing there’s been a body found in a car," said a tearful Shannon Sweitzer, one of Leta’s daughters. "It’s not just a body. It’s my mom."
Family members said they searched for Leta Keisz for more than 30 hours before finding her in the shopping center lot at 132nd Avenue SE and Kent-Kangley Road, not far from a Shari’s restaurant. Family members knocked on the windows, and when there was no response, they immediately called 911.
Police and firefighters arrived and determined the woman was dead.
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