Posted on 07/27/2006 8:07:38 PM PDT by Libloather
9 killed in Seattle area in as many days
By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jul 27, 7:29 PM ET
SEATTLE - A 3-year-old boy, his throat slit, dies along with his brother, mother and aunt while his father is serving in Iraq. Hikers find a librarian and her daughter shot to death along a trail. A group of young men are fired on when they pull their car into a driveway.
The crimes left nine people dead in as many days, stunning this generally peaceful region. Law enforcement officials said they couldn't recall a similar string of multiple homicides in the Seattle area.
"What's really strange about them, besides the quantity, is that every one of these cases is very bizarre," King County Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said. "We just don't have that."
The Seattle area is no stranger to horrific crimes serial killers Gary Ridgway and Ted Bundy, for example, and the unsolved assassination of federal prosecutor Tom Wales in 2001.
But Seattle's murder rate is low for a city of nearly 600,000. There were 24 killings in 2004 and 25 last year. Boston, of comparable size, had 61 in 2004 and 73 last year.
Seattle police spokesman Rich Pruitt noted that none of the three mass killings this month took place within city limits, though all were near. Still, Seattle itself has had 17 killings already this year more than a third of them from one attack in March, when a man shot and killed six people at a rave after-party in the worst mass killing the city had seen in decades.
The string of recent crimes in the surrounding area began July 11, when hikers found Seattle librarian Mary Cooper, 56, and her daughter, Susanna Stodden, 27, shot to death about three miles up a popular Mount Pilchuck trail 50 miles northeast of the city. No arrests have been made, and detectives have revealed little about their investigation.
Then, on July 17, fire investigators in the eastern suburb of Kirkland found the family of National Guard Sgt. Leonid Milkin dead in a burned-out home. Investigators determined gasoline had been used to start the fire.
Witness accounts led them to a next-door neighbor, who was charged Monday with four counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Charging papers said the neighbor, Conner Michael Schierman, 24, admitted that he woke up in the victims' home covered in blood following an alcoholic blackout and didn't remember what had happened.
Last Thursday, just south of the city limits, five young people were asked to leave a bowling alley and casino because two were underage. As they left, they argued with people who had been smoking outside a nearby home, police said. They pulled their car into the driveway to continue the argument, and two men at the home Dimitri Sidorchuk, 23, and William Shane Belk fired dozens of shots into the vehicle, court documents said. Of the five unarmed people in the car, two were killed and three injured.
One of Sidorchuk's stray bullets struck Belk, who also died. Sheriff's deputies said they later found a marijuana-growing operation at the home. Sidorchuk was charged Tuesday with two counts of second-degree murder, one of first-degree manslaughter and three counts of first-degree assault.
"These crimes are just gruesome," said Doug Canfield of Mountaineers Books in Seattle, who helped arrange a $6,000 reward for information in the trail killings. "We're just hoping this crime will be solved so people can head out to the trails again with a feeling of safety."
Yes, loose living could very well turn one into a Bill Clinton. Ugh! Nasty...
You can get a concealed weapons permit in Washington State. I don't know about out of state visitors, but I am sure you can find out.
Washington has reciprocity with some states for CWP. Idaho I think, but not Oregon (dunno why). Some other states.
Actually the state has pretty easy-going concealed carry rules. Also we have I believe the "don't back down rule" or whatever it is that you can pull a gun to protect yourself (rather than trying to run away first).
Couple of links:
http://www.metrokc.gov/sheriff/services/gun_permits/
and according to:
http://www.atg.wa.gov/firearms/
the list of states with reciprocity is:
North Carolina
Mississippi
Ohio
Oklahoma
Louisiana
Utah
Michigan
I guess I was wrong about Idaho.
There are many suburbs.
Get a permit. You might get it before you leave town. I got min in about twelve days as I recall.
No, it was a deranged neighbor.
Washington, for all its liberal wackyness, is a *shall-issue* state. That is, the state is required to issue a permit unless they can show a reason why they cannot.
We cling wearily to the last bits of freedom out here... :-)
I got an idea - - let's ban normal, law-abiding citizens from having guns.
That will solve everything.
So what? That many died by noon in Detroit. However most were gang driveby's and bad crack deals.
Did you read where the Kirkland police gave 300 pages of confidential evidence to the T.V. station by accident? And the defense attorney is saying he can't even get his hands on it. The attorney does state though that "this should have no impact on the trial however". (I bet!?)
No, I didn't hear that. Boobs.
Thanks. I feel better. Me being a long ways from Alabama I didn't know that if the structure of the state of Washington was such that citizens are allowed basic rights.
Being from Alabama, we dare defend the rights agreed upon by us and granted to us by the United States Constitution.
I feel better knowing that when I get to Washington I'll meet good folk like you all.
May God save the Republic.
How many more homicides have to be committed in a one month period before the news media start saying the US is in a civil war?
Too many Libs in Seattle....
Where's the exit strategy?!
bump
"I really thought Seattle had more people than that."
You may be misled by the number of 'Seattle voters' from the last election. You know... when they stole the gubernatorialship, with extra votes for the third vote count.
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