A 16-year-old from Sumner has admitted he is the person who pulled the trigger multiple times June 26, ending the life of a Snohomish man, Snohomish County prosecutors said Friday.
A continuing investigation into the slaying of Larry Kloes has led prosecutors to conclude that Jeremy Richard Boone killed Kloes by repeatedly shooting him at close range with a handgun equipped with a makeshift silencer, according to court papers filed Friday.
They had earlier concluded that Boone’s co-defendant, Perry Marshall Rothermel, 18, of Puyallup, fired the gun that killed Kloes, 49.
“Investigation, including interviews with defendant Boone, has confirmed that defendant Boone is the person who shot Mr. Kloes,” deputy prosecutor Matt Hunter said.
Boone and Rothermel were each charged Friday in Snohomish County Superior Court with first-degree murder, first-degree burglary and first-degree robbery, all while using a firearm.
They had previously been charged with aggravated murder. Boone is being treated as an adult because of a state law requiring people 16 and older to face adult charges and penalties for murder.
The pair are suspected of joining a 15-year-old boy who had been a friend of Kloes in the planned robbery and murder. That boy is charged with aggravated murder in Snohomish County Juvenile Court and is awaiting a Nov. 2 hearing that will determine whether he, too, will be tried as an adult.
Prosecutors said the murder was motivated by revenge because Kloes, 49, had reported thefts by the 15-year-old to police. Investigators suspect the teen recruited two friends to rob and kill Kloes.
Boone and Rothermel have talked with detectives about their alleged roles in the killing. Boone initially implicated Rothermel in the shooting. A witness from Sumner has since reported that within a few hours of the death, a drunken Boone told him that he’d been involved in a robbery at a Snohomish man’s home. Boone said Rothermel struck the man with a baseball bat, and that Boone shot the man multiple times, Hunter said in court papers.
He asked that Boone and Rothermel continue to be jailed in lieu of $1 million bail.
Reporter Scott North: 425-339-3431 or north@heraldnet.com.
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