Suspicions lead to arrest in death of teen in Lynnwood

LYNNWOOD — Two months after he took himself out of a court-supervised drug rehab program, a Mill Creek teenager with a history of addiction slipped out of consciousness in the basement of a Lynn­wood home.

Rescue crews were told the 16-year-old boy had overdosed.

What caused the boy to pass out and die Wednesday afternoon is now the subject of a police investigation. The doctors who tried to save him found a skull fracture.

Jamie D. Leavitt was visiting a Lynnwood man, Robert J. Spillum, 29, whom the boy had been barred from seeing by a juvenile court judge.

Spillum was arrested Wednesday in connection with Leavitt’s death. He was jailed for investigation of second-degree murder. A judge Thursday ordered Spillum held on $500,000 bail.

Detectives became suspicious when Spillum winced in pain as he shook an officer’s hand, according to a police affidavit filed Thursday in Everett District Court.

At first Spillum told detectives he hurt his hand trying to subdue an out-of-control Leavitt, court documents said.

Later, the story changed.

After questioning, Spillum allegedly told police he held the boy on the floor and punched him in the face as many as five times, the documents said. Spillum told police Leavitt was in a drug-induced state and had continuously tried to hug him.

Spillum told detectives Leavitt drank “worb water” — drug slang for the residue left over after methamphetamine is smoked in a water pipe.

Police noticed that Spillum’s hand was red and swollen. Spillum’s mother told police she saw him holding the boy down on a bed and had his hand over the teen’s chin, police wrote in the affidavit.

Kerri Leavitt doesn’t understand what happened to her son. She said she talked to him about 1 p.m. and he seemed fine. The teen was planning to visit with his 10-month-old daughter, she said.

The teenager’s mother isn’t convinced he overdosed, she said.

“He was getting his life together,” Kerri Leavitt said. “He was doing everything for his daughter.”

Her son became addicted to meth after the death of his father in 2005, she said. Jamie Leavitt recently finished inpatient drug treatment and had been ordered to seek additional treatment after being convicted of resisting arrest, according to court records.

The boy was considering joining Job Corps, an alternative to high school.

Spillum’s relatives attended Thursday’s bail hearing. A man who identified himself as Spillum’s father — but refused to say his name — told reporters Spillum was being unjustly accused of a crime he didn’t commit. He believes Leavitt overdosed on drugs and Spillum was trying to help the boy, not hurt him.

“He was like a big brother to him,” the man said. “He had taken the kid under his wing.”

During a sentencing hearing in February, a judge ordered Leavitt to stay away from Spillum. Court papers provide no information about why.

Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Tobin Darrow handled Leavitt’s prosecution in juvenile court. He said he could not recall the reason for the no-contact order, but added that it is typical for such orders to be sought in cases where an adult apparently is connected to a teen’s drug problems.

Leavitt died Wednesday afternoon at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds, police said. Doctors told detectives the boy had a fractured skull.

The case remains under investigation, the Snohomish County medical examiner said Thursday. It make take weeks to determine what caused Leavitt’s death.

“While this case remains under investigation, it’s an unfortunate situation,” said Shannon Sessions, a Lynnwood police spokeswoman. “It’s a sad story.”

On Thursday, Doug Hansen drove down by the home in the 4500 block of 172nd Place SW to see if it was a place his three teenagers had ever visited.

He lives in the neighborhood and said drug use by young people scares him.

News of Leavitt’s death left him feeling unsettled.

“You don’t want to get that phone call as a parent,” he said.

Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.