Posted on 11/06/2025 4:55:08 PM PST by Uncle Miltie
A Seattle sex offender who had previously been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole is now accused of the 1994 murder of 14-year-old Tanya Frazier.
On Thursday, King County prosecutors charged Mark Anthony Russ, 57, with one count of murder in the first degree with a sexual motivation after Seattle police said they linked him to Frazier's murder through DNA.
In 1996, Russ was given a life sentence under Washington's persistent offender law, also known as "3 strikes," after being convicted of several violent crimes in the 1980s and 1990s.
His life sentence was vacated due to sentencing reforms passed by the state legislature in 2021, and he was released from custody.
He was re-arrested this week in connection with Frazier's murder. Investigators alleged Russ was not complying with the requirements of his status as a registered sex offender when he was arrested.
Cold Case DNA Linked to Russ
Tanya Frazier disappeared on July 18, 1994, after she left a summer school class at Meany Middle School in Seattle.
Frazier's friends from the middle school told investigators they had been approached by a man after class on the day she vanished. The friends said Frazier walked with the man toward a truck that was parked nearby.
Five days later, a man who was walking his dog discovered Frazier's body in a grove of trees near 2200 Highland Drive.
A police report said Frazier's body was partially clothed, and she had sustained severe cuts to her neck.
Police collected evidence at the scene, but no arrests were made at the time. A few months after the murder, a woman who was walking near Longfellow Creek in West Seattle found a pile of Frazier's belongings, including a school book, clothing, and a wallet.
Investigators noted that Russ' mother lived near Meany Middle School in 1994, and he resided at a home near where Frazier's belongings were dumped.
Detectives with Seattle police said advances in DNA extraction technology allowed them to re-analyze samples taken from Frazier's underwear.
In October, the crime lab reported they had matched Russ' DNA to semen that was found on Frazier's leg.
Russ Was Spared From A Life Sentence
Russ had been in and out of prison for several violent crimes in the 80s and 90s.
In 1987, court records show Russ stabbed his girlfriend multiple times in the leg, crotch, stomach, and head. The woman required 175 stitches while she was being treated at Harborview Medical Center.
"The defendant called [the ex-girlfriend] at the hospital and told her he intended to finish the job on her," a charging document from the case says.
In 1991, Russ was convicted of robbery in the second degree for taking money from the Washington Athletic Club in Seattle while telling employees he had a gun.
In 1996, police arrested Russ for a violent home invasion and attempted rape in Tukwila.
According to the charges, Russ forced his way into a home and threatened a house cleaner with a knife while taking her money and forcing her to take him to a jewelry box.
Investigators from the Tukwila police said the woman reported that Russ tried to rape her, but she told him she was on her period.
“Investigating detectives noted similarities between this case and several other unsolved crimes nearby," prosecutors wrote in the 1996 charging documents.
Russ was convicted of burglary, attempted rape in the first degree, and robbery.
The conviction counted as his "third strike" under Washington law, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In 2019, the Washington legislature removed robbery in the second degree from the list of offenses that counted as a "strike".
That change, however, only applied to new cases and was not retroactive.
In 2021, Senator Jeannie Darneille (D - Tacoma) sponsored S.B. 5164, which allows inmates to petition for resentencing if one of their strike offenses was robbery in the second degree.
"There is no question that hope will abound if we pass this bill today," Darneille told a legislative committee in 2021.
Darneille's bill had support from prosecutors, including then-King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterburg, who noted at the committee hearing that robbery in the second degree was the lowest crime on the 3-strike list.
According to Darneille, the law would apply to 64 inmates who were serving life sentences with robbery in the second degree as one of their strikes.
"It's a huge opportunity to return to their community," said retired Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair, the Chair of the Sentencing Guideline Commission.
Saint Clair spoke in favor of the bill at the 2021 hearing.
“This has a real opportunity of undoing a misplaced belief and policy that has perpetuated unimaginable harm resulting in unparalleled harm and disparate impact on specifically the Black community," he said.
The bill passed the legislature and was signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee.
Later that year, Russ applied for resentencing, which was granted, and he was sentenced to time served. He was released from prison in late 2021.
Where does the case go from here?
Prosecutors have requested that Russ be held in the King County Jail without bail, noting that if convicted, the case would be his third strike and he would automatically be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
"The victim in this case was a stranger to him," King County Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Mary Barbosa wrote in charging documents. "She was 14 years old, on her way home from a school located across the street from where the defendant’s mother lived. He seemingly chose Tanya at random and induced her to talk to him by ruse. The viciousness of her injuries, the hiding of her body in a wooded area, the defendant’s violent sexual history, the prison range he faces in this case, and the fact that he has ignored court orders renders him not only a serious flight risk but an extreme danger to the community."
Russ is scheduled to appear in court for an arraignment on Nov. 12 at the King County Courthouse.
I think they should change three strikes to ‘sentence multiplier’.
Your sentence is the minimum jail term times the number of times you’ve been convicted
The judges, the lawyers and especially the State of Washington politicians are to blame.
I hope they suffer someday. The would be “justice”-—in the finally corrected sense of the word.
“O LORD, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth!”
—Psalm 94:1.
I guess there must have been some foul balls in that at-bat.
You let that fine man out of prison! He doesn’t belong there! He’s no more a criminal than I am!
Grok:
“For every 8 reported felonies, ~1 results in a felony conviction. This equates to a ~12% “end-to-end” success rate. Derived from BJS/FBI aggregates.”
So having been convicted thrice, the odds are he perpetrated TWENTY FOUR felonious crimes.
Blacks murder white 13 times more often than whites murder blacks, according to the FBI.
Teach your daughters and sons to cross the street.
Aren’t there any absolutely pissed off parents or aunts or uncles? The lawmakers are at fault. They allowed a serial offender to roam free. Removed from office is a start.
Was he released on an appearance ticket this time?
And they’ll say .... meh ... let’s just move on.
RE: Washington (state) changes made by legislature.
Example of Alaska changing the rules for a convicted killer.
In the real life Robert Hansen serial killer case incidents shown in the movie Frozen Ground (2013), the Supreme Court had made changes which had allowed the killer to be released from prison due to a legal technicality, specifically the expiration of a statute of limitations that was a result of a Supreme Court ruling regarding how evidence could be used in court.
Once released from prison, the killer then stalked, abducted, raped, tortured and killed more women.
17 women killed.
According to Wikipedia, she was selected to run the Department of Correction's (DOC) Women's Prison Division on September 21, 2021, starting fall 2021.
The thing is that these RAT-run States and RAT-run Cities, instead of charging them with a felony, reduce the charge to a misdemeanor so they don’t have to be held, and it appears that there are no violent offenses being committed.
C’mon DEMOCRATS and Son of Satan Barack Hussein Obama,
come DEFEND this guy, as you ALWAYS do
Someone should have to pay when the jackasses who are supposed to be running the justice system release a murdering bass turd to kill again.
This why all the illegal alien criminals want to come to America. Punishment for crimes here is non-existent unless you’re President Trump.
8 reported felonies
1 results in a felony conviction
12% “end-to-end” success rate
But that doesn’t count the bastards who get let out by the system before their sentences are completed.
WA/OR and CA are total shithole States. Nice people in the Eastern half, but still ruled over by Communist freaks.
Even more, Portland and Seattle are huge within their states and literally vote over 90% leftist.
The whole rest of the state can’t overcome that.
WA State Judicial system & its politicians should be indicted for aid and abetting a criminal. And place behind bars.
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