EVERETT — A woman was shot to death at her workplace early Friday in south Everett, setting off a manhunt that ended in a police shootout behind a Safeway.
Her estranged husband, 59, of Arlington, was arrested without serious injuries, police said. No officers were hurt.
The man had confronted the woman at 8 a.m. at her industrial job in the 1400 block of 80th Street SW, Everett Police Deputy Chief John DeRousse said.
There was some kind of argument before the gunfire at Achilles, a Japanese-owned plastics manufacturer with a U.S. headquarters in Everett.
He shot her, according to police. She died at the scene.
Police sent out a bulletin on Twitter around 9:50 a.m. that they were looking for a 2005 red Chevrolet Corvette with license plates BJG9998. Officers found the Corvette around 10:15 a.m. as it headed north on Broadway near downtown Everett.
The car came to a stop in the 1700 block of McDougall Avenue, a residential street, wrote Kristin Banfield, a spokeswoman for the Snohomish County Multi-Agency Response Team, a cadre of local detectives who investigate police shootings.
“Multiple officers surrounded the suspect’s vehicle on McDougall Avenue between 17th and 18th Street and reported that the suspect fired shots at the responding officers,” Banfield wrote in a press release. “Multiple officers returned fire.”
Officers subdued the suspect with non-lethal rounds.
Police escorted him to an ambulance, and he was treated at a local hospital.
Neighbors said they’d heard heavy gunfire. Some said there were at least a half-dozen bangs. Others counted dozens. A back window of the Corvette appeared to have been shattered by bullets, and at least 30 yellow markers highlighted shell casings and other scattered evidence at the scene.
Six Everett officers and one Snohomish County sheriff’s sergeant were involved in the shooting, according to SMART.
Everett police look over a Chevy Corvette after arresting a suspect in a homicide in the 1700 block of McDougall Avenue on Friday in Everett. (Andy Bronson / The Herald)
A handgun was recovered from the front passenger seat, along with an ammunition magazine.
The Arlington man was expected to be booked into the Snohomish County Jail. He had not been taken to jail as of Friday evening. The Daily Herald does not typically identify suspects by name until they have appeared before a judge.
Hours after the shooting, it was quiet at Achilles as light rain fell. Orange cones lined a driveway. Security guards watched the entrance. No police tape or activity could be seen from a sidewalk outside the business.
Tax records show the couple ran a thrift store in Arlington in recent years. A marriage certificate says they wed at a Nevada chapel in April 2006.
Court records suggest the woman filed to have the marriage annulled this year, with documentation showing the man hadn’t divorced a past wife in Florida until late 2007 — making the new marriage invalid. Lately the woman, 57, had been living on Camano Island.
As of two months ago, she believed the man abandoned the family home and traveled to Florida.
A $75,000 bench warrant had been issued for the husband’s arrest around the same time, in a case where he was charged with two counts of felony harassment.
An Island County sheriff’s deputy wrote that the man made vague threats to his wife over texts in January, when he was thought to be living in the Arlington area. In a two-hour phone call with the deputy, he made disturbing comments, then backtracked, according to an incident report.
“He claimed he borrowed a .357 gun from his neighbor and was going to bring it with him, but ‘only for protection,’” the deputy wrote.
A week later, the threats became more explicit. He told a 911 dispatcher he hadn’t eaten or slept since his wife left him a week earlier, and he wanted to confront his stepson, a police officer, with a gun, according to an arrest warrant.
Police in Island County were concerned he’d implied a “murder-suicide-type scenario.” An alert was sent to Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies that the husband was armed and dangerous, and that he may attempt “suicide by cop,” court records say.
The woman reportedly told deputies she was afraid her estranged husband would follow through.
She and her son took the threats seriously enough to hurriedly pack their belongings at 10:30 p.m., fleeing to a safe place on an icy 20-degree night.
Reporter Lizz Giordano contributed to this story.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com; @snocaleb.
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