LAKEBAY, Wash. — Pierce County prosecutors say they won’t file charges in the September death of a man who was run over by his date when she drove off in his truck.
The Kitsap Sun reported that the pair had met earlier in the day when he stopped to pick her up as she was walking along a road. Later that night, after consuming a large amount of alcohol, they wound up getting in a fight in the Lakebay area of the Key Peninsula as one of the man’s friends gave her a tattoo.
The woman started to drive off in the man’s truck. The man, 53-year-old Leon Robert Shaw, ran outside, where the tattoo artist found him dying in the road.
The woman, 47 and from Port Orchard, told detectives she believed Shaw had drugged her and that she could remember little from the evening. The Washington State Patrol said she had alcohol and meth in her system.
Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist told The News Tribune newspaper of Tacoma that it was a case of self-defense.
“Her actions were a form of self-defense, escaping a sexual assault,” Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said. “Her intent was not to hit the deceased, but just to get away.”
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