By Todd C. Frankel
Herald Writer
Christopher Allen Smith finished the late shift at Home Depot in North Seattle’s Bitter Lake neighborhood and headed to his Dodge Durango in the parking lot. A member of the store’s overnight crew locked the door behind him.
Smith, 27, was on his way home to a wife and young child in Mountlake Terrace.
But he made it only a couple of blocks to an intersection where, at 2:37 a.m. Sunday, police found him slumped over the wheel of his vehicle. Smith had been shot in the head. He died early Monday at Harborview Medical Center.
"It could’ve been a carjacking. It could’ve been a robbery attempt. We don’t know," Seattle police spokesman Duane Fish said Tuesday.
In Mountlake Terrace early Sunday morning, Andy Bergstrom spotted his next-door neighbor outside as he pulled up in front of his house in the 3700 block of 220th Place NW.
Andrea Smith was crying, Bergstrom recalled. She told him she was going to the hospital to see her husband.
It’s a crime that has Smith’s neighbors, his coworkers and Seattle police at a loss to explain.
"It’s certainly a whodunit," Fish said.
Smith got off work sometime after 2 a.m. and was seen again slumped over his wheel at the intersection of NE 115th Street and Meridian Avenue.
A witness told police that a man dressed in black got out of the Dodge’s passenger-side door and ran toward nearby Evergreen Washelli Cemetery in North Seattle. Fish said it appears the unknown suspect was inside the vehicle when the shooting occurred.
As police called to the scene cautiously approached Smith’s still-running Dodge, the vehicle suddenly lurched forward. Officers had to use police cars to box it in. Smith’s foot apparently slipped and hit the accelerator, Fish said.
Smith was relatively new to the Home Depot on Aurora Avenue. He had worked there for nearly five months as an assistant manager in charge of specialty departments such as kitchens and baths, said store manager Scott West.
West and "Chris," as employees knew him, grew close with a shared interest in motorcycles. They rode together during lunch breaks, heading out to Carkeek Park.
"You’d wolf down your lunch," West said, "and have some fun for the rest of the hour."
Home Depot has set up an internal account for store employees to donate funds for Smith’s family, West said. The company matches any donations. Plans for a fund open to the public were still being worked out.
Smith and his family moved into their Mountlake Terrace neighborhood only last year. It’s a quiet area of modest one-story and split-level houses with trim lawns. From the street, a whistle blowing and a coach’s shouts from a nearby school athletic field can be heard over the hum of lawnmowers.
Bergstrom said he didn’t know his neighbor too well at first.
"During the summer, we got to know each other," he said.
Both men spent the summer rebuilding cars. Bergstrom worked on a F250 truck, Smith had a 1970s Chevy Chevelle. They talked about how each was putting in a new motor.
Bergstrom recalled that Smith played with his son in the front yard while tossing a ball to his pet Rottweiller.
And Smith was proud of the motorcycle he had bought only four months before: a shiny blue Yamaha YZF-R1.
It was still in his driveway Tuesday.
You can call Herald Writer Todd C. Frankel at 425-339-3429
or send e-mail to frankel@heraldnet.com.
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