SNOHOMISH — A 12-year-old girl was feeding her chickens east of Snohomish on a November afternoon.
She and her brother were near the coop next to the line between their family’s property and their neighbor’s.
They heard a gunshot.
The girl grabbed her leg. She’d been hit.
The brother reported hearing two more shots. The girl was taken to the hospital.
Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies searched the area for a possible shooter. A SWAT team came in an armored vehicle.
Deputies went to the neighboring property that day, Nov. 16, in the 6700 block of 181st Street SE. They called out to the residents to come out to make sure they were safe. A man and a woman came out. They reportedly told deputies they’d been in their trailer for the last few hours. They also reported they hadn’t seen anyone on the property and hadn’t heard the shots. The woman told them her father lived on the property in another trailer.
That woman, 29, was charged late last month with the girl’s shooting. Prosecutors charged her in Snohomish County Superior Court with third-degree assault of a child and first-degree unlawful firearm possession.
On Dec. 1, about two weeks after the shooting, a detective interviewed the woman’s father. He told the detective he’d had issues with the neighbors, according to the charges. He reported he was asleep when the girl was shot. He didn’t wake up until police arrived.
He also reportedly told the detective his daughter had claimed responsibility for the shooting. Other family members told the detective that the woman had said she shot the girl, prosecutors allege.
Police got another tip on the shooting Dec. 3. The woman had reportedly talked about it on a recorded video call with someone in custody at the jail.
“I (expletive) shot somebody, dog,” the woman said, according to court papers.
The inmate put her finger over her mouth to get the woman to stop talking.
The suspect kept talking. According to the charges, she said she fired a gun three times on her property. One round struck the girl, she reportedly said on the call. She also said she used a metal detector to find shell casings before throwing them out.
When the woman learned her friend would be going to prison, she reportedly responded, “I will be right behind you.”
She was arrested Dec. 9 while driving on I-5 in Everett. Police found a lot of clothes in her car. They believed she was planning to leave. A family member told police she overheard the suspect talk about leaving the state.
In a police interview, the woman asked how the wounded girl was doing.
At first, the woman told detectives she heard her father had fired the shots, according to court papers. She reported she didn’t hear the gunfire. Detectives told her they heard different.
She told them she was covering for her father when she had claimed responsibility for the shooting. The woman said the jail call was part of the coverup.
According to court documents, however, she eventually admitted to being the shooter.
In the police interview, she reported she got the Smith & Wesson handgun from a friend. She told police she then hid it and a friend later got rid of it.
The woman has one prior felony conviction from 2015, for attempted residential burglary. So it’s illegal for her to have a gun.
She was in the Snohomish County Jail on Friday with bail set at $150,000. If released, she has to surrender her passport within 24 hours.
Jake Goldstein-Street:
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