LYNNWOOD — His wife of four years had been shot.
He said it was an accident, according to a police report filed in Snohomish County Superior Court.
The 45-year-old Lynnwood man was arrested on May 21 for investigation of first-degree assault and possession of a stolen firearm.
Shortly after 5:30 p.m. that day, the woman told a dispatcher that her husband had been cleaning his gun at their apartment when it discharged — a story she would later change.
Lynnwood police found her in an apartment, by herself, with a laceration above her eyebrow and a gunshot wound in her shoulder. She was taken to Providence Regional Medical Center Everett. Her injuries are not life threatening.
The man had apparently left, but police soon found him at Daleway Park off 64th Avenue W. He was “clearly intoxicated” and had blood stains on his shirt, court papers say.
Officers asked him where his gun was.
“What, you didn’t find it?” the man said, laughing, according to documents.
During an interview with police, he reportedly said he and his wife were just playing around with the gun, pulling it back and forth, when it went off.
At the hospital, his wife changed her version of events.
She said she had previously been assaulted by her husband. In that incident, he was drunk and he was “hitting, slapping and placing his hand on (her) throat,” she told a detective.
The night of the shooting, he reportedly had drunk a six-pack of beer. She made dinner, but neither of them ate.
Then he went to the bedroom and grabbed a silver handgun. She took it and put it back in a box in the closet.
She told the detective that he had had the gun for years, but he always kept it unloaded and he never took it out.
Afterward, she went to the bathroom, which had no door because it was broken. Her husband allegedly staggered down the hallway and got the gun again. He pointed it at her while singing a song about being in the mafia, the report says.
The gun fired.
“Oh my god, it was an accident, I’m so sorry,” he reportedly said.
He gave her a towel and helped press it against her head, then left, court papers say.
Police noted in the report that there was blood on the toilet, sink and floor. They found a bullet lodged in the shower wall.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
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