Seattle Crime Reports : Seattle Crime Blog : Seattle, Washington

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Four days after James Paroline was brutally murdered following a traffic dispute in Rainier Beach, police have named a suspect.

28-year-old Brian Keith Brown is believed to be the man who delivered the fatal punch to Paroline's head after Paroline had engaged in an argument with a group of women who were angry that he had blocked traffic to water the traffic circle. It seemed strange to me that no one, including the girls involved in the case had been able to give any information about the assailant.  Police have now figured out why, saying it's possible that the girls called Brown after Paroline squirted one with his hose.

Chuck Benson, one of Paroline's neighbors who spoke to girls at the scene, was not surprised that police identified a suspect. He believed the girls had phoned the assailant for help because the man arrived so quickly to the scene.

"I think (police) had a suspect from day one," Benson said Monday. "The rapidity of his response to the situation -- he was no stranger."

If the girls did in fact call Brown, this situation is even sadder than it seems.  Paroline was guilty of nothing but creating a minor traffic nuisance. Calling someone to, as witnesses put it, "sucker punch" a sixty-year-old man over a minor disagreement is one of those gross overreactions that remind us why it's sometimes better not to try to reason with the irrational.

Police are now looking for Brown, who they have already charged with second-degree murder. Apparently a neighbor happened to have a video trained on that situation that catches Brown in the act, meaning a conviction should be a slam dunk.

Paroline's death was an unnecessary one. Finding the killer should help bring solace to the situation, and anyone with information should come forth and call 911.

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Idiots:

A Gold Bar man's text messages to his new girlfriend on the day her ex-boyfriend was killed -- including one that allegedly read "it's done" -- helped lead to murder charges against both of them.

When will people realize that technology and crime do not mix? Time and time again we see this: from MySpace rapists to YouTube gangbangers, the uneducated seem unable - or perhaps just unwilling - to see that our cell phones, the Internet, streaming video...all can do just as much harm as they can good. In the digital age, even a seemingly innocuous two word text message can be your downfall...and "survival of the fittest' seems to have taken on a whole new meaning entirely.

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An Italian judge ruled today that Knox, the former UW student held in Italy for the murder of her roommate, will continue to be held in Italian jail instead of being relegated to house arrest:

Luciano Ghirga, a lawyer for Knox, said Saturday that he had sought to have her placed under house arrest. But the judge in Perugia rejected the request, Ghirga said, without elaborating.

Knox was arrested Nov. 6 and the courts have ruled that she may be held without being charged for up to a year. Just another non-development in this case. 

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The teen who shot and killed Seattle cab driver Jagjit Singh last summer was sentenced to life in prison yesterday.

Earnest Collins, who reportedly shot Singh in the head in order to get some sort of adrenaline rush, broke down in tears and still claimed it was not him in the video and voice recordings.

I have no doubt in my mind that Collins is guilty and I think life in prison was exactly what he deserved. His testimonial that he was not guilty is almost beyond comprehension. Check out this article, which was written after Collin's arrest. The list of evidence against him is so long, I can't believe a mildly reasonable person (which Collins, apparently is not) would even pretend to be innocent:

Deputies were led to Collins after determining the call summoning a cab was made from his home, which was near where the cab was found, according to charging papers. Several people identified Collins' voice on the taxi company's recorded line, charging papers said.

Investigators also found burned clothing at the home that Collins shared with his parents and siblings, Urquhart said.

Investigators found a trail of pennies leading from the burned taxi to a driveway near Collins' home. A friend said Collins had recently lost money in a Seattle dice game and talked about "jacking someone" to earn that money back, charging papers said.

Thank God this monster's friends had enough moral fiber to step up and offer forth evidence. People like Collins are what makes mothers worry about their teenagers being out late.

There's a side story that's popping out of this terrible situation as well. The cab driver community in Seattle and surrounding areas is a rather tight-knit one. The life of a taxi driver is itself enough to warrant interest. I wish I could find the link, but if you have a subscription, check out James Gardner's article in the December 2007 issue of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine. Gardner, who is a phenomenal writer, rode around in taxis and gained access to a community and lifestyle like few journalists have (if you have the piece or if anyone knows how to find a link to that story without starting a subscription, I'd love to know).

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The horrendous beating death of Noel Richard Lopez by two men at a Capitol Hill construction (which the Seattle Crime Blogger covered on Tuesday) site got me to thinking about the death penalty in Washington State, due to the horrible nature of the crime. 

The two men suspected in Lopez's murder probably won't be getting it, as Washington State only has the option of execution if offenders are convicted of aggravated first-degree murder, which these two men are not eligible to be tried under. Check out this rundown of the 13 different situations where someone can be tried for that crime.

My original post was going to be a debate on whether or not they deserved the death penalty (and whether the death penalty is a viable means of punishment due to states justice systems inherent flaws) if found guilty of beating a man with various objects over the course of several hours...but as it turns out, it doesn't matter if they deserve it, because they are not eligible.

Yet through the course of the research, I found an interesting tidbit on the State legislature's website.

Four prisoners have been executed in Washington State since 1976 (the year the Supreme Court's ban on capital punishment was overturned). And while that information may be of little interest to most readers, what stood out to me was the fact that prisoners that are to be executed can choose death by hanging if they so desire. 

Hanging?! 118 years after the first electric chair execution, our state still has an option for death row prisoners to die via the very practice the chair was created to eliminate. Unbelievable. I have to wonder what kind of public outcry we could expect should a prisoner decide to serve out his sentence at the end of a rope. Whether that situation will arise in the foreseeable future is anyone's guess.

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Yup...captured this morning:

The 20-year-old Seattle man was arrested by police at noon in downtown Seattle, said Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kapell. He was booked into the King County Jail on investigation of murder and for an unrelated warrant.

Everyone's accounted for. Now lets hope the real details start to emerge.

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Over the past few days, the story of Noel Richard Lopez - a 25-year-old Texas transplant to Seattle who was found beaten to death at a construction site near 7th & Madison last week - has been the subject of more in-depth coverage. Though the link between Lopez's death and the Puyallup home explosion that killed convicted sex offender Zane Dittman last Monday has since been proven false, the truth coming out regarding the Lopez case is just as sensational.

An unremarkable death that initially appeared as just a few sentences buried in the Times' Local Digest, interesting details have emerged this weekend that paint a bizarre picture of amateur fight clubs and the inner city heavyweight title for which blood has now been shed:

On Sunday, Lopez and the suspect, who is 6 feet 2 inches and weighs 220 pounds, wrestled at Freeway Park for the title of "King of Freeway Park," according to court documents.

The victim's family has said Lopez competed in entertainment wrestling.

About 20 of the suspect's friends, some of them drinking, watched as the suspect won the match, the court documents state.

The scenario sounds almost laughable: a group of more than 20 people, gathering unnoticed at a park in the middle of urban Seattle, watching a couple of dudes duke it out. But then it gets nasty.

From the sound of things, Lopez lost fair and square (or as fair as is possible in a battle with such a physically well-matched adversary). Why he didn't just depart with his tail between his legs is beyond me; it's a move that would have likely saved his life. Instead...

At some point, the suspect who was arrested and a second person, a 20-year-old man, walked with Lopez to the construction site to "handle this problem and straighten him out."

But the 22-year-old suspect told detectives that once they arrived, Lopez "came at him to fight him." That is when the two men knocked Lopez unconscious, but he regained consciousness.

The beating continued, as the men stomped on Lopez's stomach and chest, prosecutors said. They also hit and kicked him while he was on the ground and broke boards over his head and body, according to court documents.

The arrested suspect told investigators that the second man hit Lopez with a large metal object. The overall beating lasted "several hours," he said.

Even though the suspect claims Lopez was the aggressor, I'm skeptical. There are questions here that have yet to be answered:

• Why would these guys need to "straighten [Lopez] out" if the main suspect had already kicked his ass?
  
• Why did the beatings continue after Lopez was knocked out and regained consciousness, and why did the suspects use weapons when - if a beating was really all they had in mind - the job could just as easily have been done with their fists?
• Several hours? Don't know where these suspects are from, but it seems like anytime you beat someone for that long you're doing so with the impression they won't be getting up to walk it off.

I remember when I first arrived in Seattle a few years back to go to college, local kids I lived in the dorms with warned me to avoid Freeway Park after dark..."every year a few people go missing in there and just turn up dead," somebody told me. Of course, within a year I was living right next to Freeway Park and walking through it on an almost nightly basis, never encountering anything more than peace-seeking junkies and posses of roaming homeless. But I never did get to meet urban royalty.

Sometimes, being king isn't all it's cracked up to be. If only someone had told this to Noel Richard Lopez, he might still be alive today.

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It seems we will never know what really happened to Meredith Kercher.

After months of media and court reports detailing how Kercher had been sexually assaulted and probably killed while fending off that assault, a court-appointed expert testitified today that there was "not enough evidence to conclude" that Kercher had been sexually assaulted.

"When no traces of sperm are found, when there are no traces of physical violence," it is difficult to determine that there was sexual violence, Giancarlo Ronchi, the court-appointed expert said.

Yea, that sounds like perhaps a solid indication of no sexual assault.  The questions now becomes:  why did everyone so quickly accept the sexual assault theory when there was no evidence of such?

They also could not conclude whether or not she had been strangled, another damper to the murdered by a passionate lover theory.  

When it comes to handling of the Amanda Knox case, the only thing we can depend on is that what we know as truth, probably isn't. 

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For those folks - such as myself - who are a little confused as to why former University of Washington student Amanda Knox can be held without charges in an Italian jail cell in connection with her roommate's murder, this tidbit of information may make the "hold for a year without charging" policy a little more clear: it seems the Italian court system has a serious problem with backlogged cases.

According to "Crime and Criminal Policy in Italy: Tradition and Modernity in a Troubled Country", a piece published by two Italian grad students the European Journal of Criminology last year (subscription required), the Italian court systems had over 3 million "pending" criminal cases as recently as 2005.

This could help explain why no charges have been brought against Knox, her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and reported drug dealer Rudy Guede. Plus it raises some other questions: if the court system is that bogged down, how effective is the investigation into Meredith Kercher's murder? What if, after a year, they simply release Knox? The idea was unfathomable six months ago; now, it could very well be the case (after all, more than a few people were waiting with bated breath for the court's decision earlier today on Knox's immediate fate). If that happens, I'm guessing we can expect this matter of backlogging is sure to gain some much deserved attention.

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...nowhere. The West Seattle college student turned internationally known murder suspect won't be leaving Perugia anytime soon, a court ruled today:

The Court of Cassation rejected a defense request for the release of University of Washington student Amanda Knox of Seattle; her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede.

"All three requests have been rejected," said Marco Brusco, a lawyer for Sollecito.

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Seems like most reasonable people would know the answer is a resounding "no." But apparently not these folks:

The family of a teenager who was shot to death at a high school in Tacoma is seeking $35 million from the city's public schools.

The seven wrongful death claims were filed Thursday by the family of Samnang Kok. Lawyers for the family say school officials should have done more to prevent the fatal shooting of the 17-year-old Foss High School junior on Jan. 3, 2007.

We at Seattle Crime Blog feel for Kok's family, we really do. But $35 million from the public school system? Give me a break. This family has fallen victim to our biggest pet peeve: they've allowed their emotion to get in the way of reason. And the selfishness of their lawsuit is apparent. What do they think, that they can teach the school a lesson in crime prevention by stripping them of millions? That sure makes a lot of sense.

Let's hope the judge in this case, whose eyes haven't glossed over with dollar signs, takes the common sense approach and throws the Kok lawsuit out.

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That's what The Seattle Times says in a report this morning:

Pierce County Deputy Prosecutor Ed Murphy said Tuesday that prosecutors plan to file the murder charge, which has only two possible penalties in Washington state: death or life in prison without parole. Murphy said a decision on whether to seek the death penalty had not been made.

If the trial were in King County, where prosecuting attorneys rarely recommend the death penalty, Davila might be able to breathe a bit easier. But Pierce County is a whole different story: unlike King County, it lacks the urban backbone that is Seattle...which we'd guess makes our neighbors to the south far less educated and much more redneck. And from what we've seen over the years, the majority of death penalty supporters fall into one (or, more often than not, both) of the aforementioned groups.

UPDATE:

The Times has updated their story with the latest: looks like Ms. Davila has been transfered to the custody of the U.S. Army, who will administer her court martial proceedings.

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Earlier this morning, we wrote about the developing case of Ivette Gonzalez Davila, a Fort Lewis soldier and total hotty who apparently murdered two of her colleagues and kidnapped their baby. The 22-year-old suspect was reported to have had a MySpace...which we have since discovered, thanks to the help of reader theDude. Alas, the profile belonging to Davila - aka Miss Eve -  has already been set to private.

But Steve Huff, the diligent crime blogger behind the True Crime Weblog, is providing in-depth coverage of the case...and he managed to snag a few of the so-called "racy" pictures mentioned in this morning's P.I. Head over to his site to see pictures, details of a possible motive, and more analsis.

Huff's readers also pointed him to the online profiles of the two victims:

• Randi Miller's MySpace page
  
• Timothy Miller's MySpace page

Worth noting at Randi's page: look at her top 24 friends, pictured below. Note the seventh profile on the list. Look familiar? Yup. It's Miss Eve. The plot thickens.

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We can't claim to know much about Ivette Gonzalez Davila, the 22-year-old Fort Lewis soldier recently arrested on suspicion of homicide and kidnapping. But after reading the coverage of her supposed crime in the local dailies this morning, one thing is clear: this suspect has got it going on in the looks department.

Tasteless on our part? Probably. But we just can't help ourselves.

Look at the picture (right) and tell us she isn't just the cutest little suspected murderer you've ever seen. Though it's still early March, we at Seattle Crime Blog would even be so bold as to claim that Ms. Davila has already secured the crown in our unofficial, just-announced "Hottest Northwest murder suspect of the year" competition. I mean, come on...how often does such a bodacious babe grace our local crime headlines? Usually we just see sleazy looking dirtbags.

Sure, Davila is suspected of some heinous business: authorities say she killed a married couple - also soldiers at Fort Lewis - with a handgun, before dousing the bodies in acid (in an unsuccessful attempt to dispose of the evidence) and kidnapping their baby. The gravity of these crimes should not be understated, and it goes without saying that our hearts are with the victims and their families. If guilty, Davila certainly deserves to be punished appropriately.

Police think the motive may be tied to some sort of jealousy-induced rage. And yes, MySpace was involved. From the P.I.:

Davila had been corresponding with Randi and Timothy Miller [the couple she is suspected of murdering] through the personal networking Web site MySpace.com. In recent months, Davila had posted four short notes on the Millers' sites, most recently on Feb. 11, telling Timothy she would be coming over.

Lights & Sirens, the Tacoma News Tribune's crime blog, offers details from the victims' MySpace pages...but they don't provide links to either (apparently its authors haven't gotten hip to the purpose of blogs). We at SCB tried, unsuccessfully, to locate Davila's profile; after all, reading the P.I.'s coverage makes it hard to resist:

On her own site, Davila posted several racy photos -- including several of herself -- as well as two shots of semiautomatic handguns.

Hubba hubba. Like we always say, the only thing sexier than a scantily clad woman is a scantily clad woman who loves semiautomatic weapons.

Of course, some moralists, probably lacking the ability to detach themselves from emotionally-charged situations, feel a need to rain on the parade. At the P.I.'s Soundoff, commenter foulshot snaps us out of our daydream:

To the people who think this ugly female is hot, I feel sorry for you and suggest counseling. She's destroyed at least three lives.

Maybe so...but in this case, the saying "beauty is only skin deep" works to our advantage. Plus, as commenter Felon for Rossi noted in a post that P.I. moderators seem to have since deleted:

[S]he's 22, she's hot and this being Washington, 2 counts of 1st degree murder will get you less that 8. She'll be out before she is 30 and she's mine!!!

Felon for Rossi is probably not alone...we'd guess that, assuming Davila makes it out of jail before her good looks are gone, potential suitors will be lining up at the prison gates on the day of her release. Some people are into that whole "bad girl" thing.

But we at Seattle Crime Blog won't be among them. Oogling pictures of a suspected murderer over the Internet is one thing; lining up to take her hand and bring her home to meet the parents is a whole other story.

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We saw a huge upswing in traffic last week, after Amanda Knox's parents were featured on 20/20 defending their daughter. Remember Amanda? The UW student caught up in an Italian murder case, who we wrote about ad nauseum after the case broke last November? Well she's still in jail, but the press - both local and national - seems to be expressing a new-found interest in the case as of late.

Yet instead of focusing on Knox as a suspect, they're painting her as a victim. In the 20/20 interview, her mother complained that "jail's not easy," as if forgetting why her daughter is there in the first place; meanwhile, Knox's sister says the suspect "cares about everyone else before herself." We're sure Patrick Lumumba would agree.

Of course, as the Honest Blogger notes (rather obscenely), this outpouring of support from family and friends is not surprising:

Her parents may be firmly behind her, but in truth who's parents would turn round and say, "Yeah I think she did it - I've always thought my daughter could be a murdering little bitch." - GET FUCKING REAL.

It would never happen, nor should it...families have an obligation to defend their own, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find parents anywhere who love their child and would be willing to admit their faults, even if there was a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise.

Now other voices, those not bound by family ties, are coming out and painting a different picture. This week's edition of The Stranger has got an in-depth piece on the case: Charles Mudede, author of philosophical musings that have drawn the ire of cranky SLOG commenters but whose "Police Beat" column is the best thing in the weekly paper, traveled to Perugia to write about the case from a first-hand perspective. The most revealing quotes in his piece come not from Perugia, but the World Cup cafe in Seattle's U-District, where Knox used to work.

During a visit there before his departure to Italy, Mudede ran into "Matthew," an old college buddy who currently works at the World Cup. This man's testimonial contradicted the picture-perfect image that Knox's family and friends have been relaying so far:

"You know," Matthew said, leaning toward me, "a lot of people are saying she is a sweet girl and they can't believe she could have done such a thing. But, to be honest, I'm not surprised she is a suspect. Really. The first time I met her, when I got the job here, she asked me if I was Jewish. I told her I was. She then screamed: 'My people killed your people,' and began laughing hysterically. I didn't know what to say. She just kept laughing about her Germans killing my Jews. After that, I did not like her. She really freaked me out."

Charming. You're right, Mom and Dad...she sounds like a lovely girl.

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That didn't take long. Per our prediction last night, Central District shooting suspect Rey Alberto Davis-Bell has been arrested in South Seattle.

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We don't have time for a full update on the matter - and all the other local blogs are on top of it already - but there was a fatal shooting this morning at 23rd & Union in Seattle's Central District.

23rd & Union, those familiar with local crime will recall, is where much of the loitering that used to occur outside The Chocolate City Club near 21st & Madison relocated after that fine establishment's closure.

Since then, reports indicate, 23rd & Union has become a haven of criminality: open drug dealing on the streets (which the Seattle Crime Bloggers have witnessed with our own eyes), mass congregations of meandering hoodlums, and, of course, shootings. Why, just earlier today, Dan Savage mentioned in a SLOG post that a few months back, his young son "saw a man get pulled from a car and shot at point-blank range. At 23rd & Union."

Today's shooting occurred at the Philly cheese steak shop located there. There were two victims - supposedly one patron and one employee - wounded in the hail of bullets. They were taken to Harborview in critical condition. One has since died.

The lovely fellow pictured above is Rey Alberto Davis-Bell, the suspect in today's crime. He is also suspected in opening fire on a West Seattle apartment building earlier this morning, supposedly over a dispute with his girlfriend who lived there. No one was hurt in the West Seattle shooting.

Davis-Bell has yet to be arrested, and police report him to be "heavily armed." Which means STAY AWAY if you happen to cross his path...but do call the cops.

Goes without saying that it's only a matter of time before this trigger-happy suspect is brought in...men who are stupid enough to do two shootings in one day, in broad daylight no less, sure as hell aren't smart enough to stay hidden with the entire SPD and local FBI on their trail.

Until then, here's a round-up of the local reports. But take our word for it...Central District Newscdguy has got all the coverage you could ever want. Great job, ! You're a living example of citizen journalism at its finest.

Aside from CDN, you can read more at:

• Gunman sought in fatal central district shooting - The P.I.
  
• One man killed, another wounded in Central Area shooting in Seattle - The Times
  
• Shooting down the street at 23rd & Union - Capitol Hill Seattle
• Two people critically injured at 23rd & Union restaurant - Miller Park Neighborhood Association Blog
• Update on the Delridge shooting suspect (possible CD link) - West Seattle Blog
• Shooting at 23rd & Union - SLOG

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On the Soundoff page of an article regarding the Shannon Harps murder in today's P.I., commenter mik kacian is gloating - and they've got a right to.

I was the first person on PI soundoff and all the media to blame mental illness. This was met with such opposition and denial from so many. Why so many folks are in such denial about mental illness here?! It's not rocket science, it's in your face everyday, and it's not supposed to be like that in a jurisdiction where a lot of people get paid to take care of this issues. Just say it: MENTAL ILLNESS IS A HUGE PROBLEM IN SEATTLE'S RESIDENTIAL AREAS! It's like talking about race here! taboo taboo, taboo! and the problem goes on on and on.

Don't believe mik kacian's assertions that they were first to point the finger in the right direction? Then look below for a post we at Seattle Crime Blog originally authored on January 3, 2008 - just three days after Shannon Harps' murder - but decided against publishing, for fear of needlessly throwing blame around so soon after the victim's death.

But, our beliefs on the role of the mentally ill in this slaying remained in the back of our minds, waiting for the right opportunity to come forth...so in light of recent developments (and due to the fact that we put some work into it that would otherwise go to waste), we feel this lengthy post deserves to see the light of day. See the full rant after the jump.

Continue Reading...

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"Was Shannon Harps' murder on Capitol Hill a random attack?" That was a question we posed on January 3rd, in the immediate aftermath of Harps' brutal stabbing at 15th & Howell.

Now, more than three weeks later, we finally have an answer: yes.

UPDATE:

We don't know where he got it or whether it's legit, but Dan Savage at SLOG has published a picture of the suspect in custody (who the Times and P.I. are still too timid to name, let alone show). And my oh my, what a...unique...looking fellow he is. The Seattle Crime Blog doesn't normally agree with Dan, but his quote on the matter sums it up best:

No one deserves to have this be the last thing they see before they die.

One last observation before we check out for the evening: don't know about you, but we don't see any real similarities - aside from the presence of facial hair - between this...

...and this: 

Is the photograph above really the man who killed Harps? If so, how would witnesses not have remembered his distinguishing features when speaking to the police sketch artist in the hours after her killing?

Extra kudos to SLOG, from whom I acquired the above photograph.

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A man has been arrested in connection with Harps' slaying at 15th & Howell, says the P.I.

Police are having a press conference on the issue at 4 p.m. More news as soon as I have time to blog it after that...

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Something happened after DéChé Morrison's funeral that apparently worried administrators up at Madrona Elementary...though they won't say exactly what. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee over at SLOG reports this morning:

According to Seattle Schools spokesman David Tucker, district security and Madrona administrators received information which led to the alert. “There were some heightened concerns,” Tucker says, “and we wanted to increase our security as a precautionary measure. Tucker would not comment on the nature of the information the school received.

Today, all but one of the school’s entrances were secured and staff were told to be on alert for visitors. [Note: Emphasis added by the Seattle Crime Blogger - Ed.]

Morrison was of high school age, and had most recently attended Cleveland High School (which he had dropped out of in November). This raises some questions:

• Did Morrison attend Madrona? If so, was this some sort of retaliatory threat? (And against whom?)
  
• If not, why would a K-8 school be on alert following the funeral of a 14-year-old kid whose last educational experiences took place halfway across the city?
• And finally, why would school officials be so tight-lipped about the whole thing, when the safety of their students is potentially threatened?

Congrats to Jonah, who appears to have scooped both the major dailies on this intriguing development.

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Remember the guy police were calling a "person of interest" in the Shannon Harps murder? There's no DNA evidence linking him to the crime after all, says The Times.

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The 14-year-old boy gunned down on South Rose Street will be laid to rest next week, West Seattle Blog reports:

One of the headlines from tonight’s West Seattle Community Safety Partnership meeting — the Southwest Precinct is working on security for a high-profile funeral that will be held in West Seattle next week. Lt. Steve Paulsen told the WSCSP tonight that the funeral for Deche Morrison, the 14-year-old found shot dead in South Seattle last Friday, is set for Tuesday at Freedom Church (35th SW & Roxbury), and Lt. Paulsen says you can expect to see a sizable police presence in the area.

A funeral swarming with law enforcement may not be the best way to bid farewell to a departed loved one, but the heavy police presence should be expected: no details have emerged yet as to who Morrison's killer is.

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Another case of South Seattle violence came to light in the local press this morning, with both the P.I. and The Times reporting on a 14-year-old gunned down on South Rose Street.

Police spokesman Mark Jamieson didn't specify when the victim - identified by family members as DéChé Morrison - was killed. But The Times offered evidence indicating neighbors in the area near where the body was discovered heard gunshots at around 9 p.m. Thursday evening. Morrison wasn't discovered until late yesterday afternoon...meaning that for almost 24 hours, he lay dead in the street.

The Times also reports that the victim was a former student at Cleveland High School, who enrolled as a freshman early in the 2007-2008 academic year but dropped out in November. That's the same school where Allen Joplin, the 17-year-old shot to death at a party on Elliott Avenue West last Friday, once played basketball.

Joplin was reportedly associated with the Deuce Eight street gang, which operates around 28th & Jackson - a charge that memorial postings on MySpace seem to support but is denied by family members. No word yet on whether Morrison had any gang ties, or whether the deaths were related.

From the P.I.:

Gordon Scott, the victim's father who spoke with his son Thursday night, told KOMO/4 that Morrison had some minor scuffles with friends at school but was doing better recently. "I had to tell him, you know, bullets don't have a name on them," he said. "My son just picked the wrong friends to have around."

And because of it, this young man - not even old enough to drive a car or buy cigarettes - is dead.

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Police and community members will be getting together on Capitol Hill this evening to discuss safety in our neighborhood in the wake of Shannon Harps' brutal stabbing at 15th & Howell. Should be an interesting discussion, and I'd imagine there will be quite a few folks there.

Details, according to the Miller Park Neighborhood Association Blog:

When: Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 6:00 PM

Where: Group Health Capitol Hill Campus, South Building , Level A, Atrium
201 16th Ave East , Seattle WA 98112

I'll be there...and I hope to see some of you readers in attendance as well. If the event is worthwhile, expect to see a commentary/follow-up piece here in the SCB.

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That's the question that, three days after the victim's brutal stabbing at 15th & Howell,  many Hill dwellers are asking.

I'm among them...my residence is just a few blocks away from the street corner where Harps lay dying, and my community is visibly shaken by the events. News crews have taken over the soon-to-be new park on Howell between 15th & 16th (which at this point is still a parking lot), and the makeshift candlelight vigil erected in Harps' memory seems to be attracting visitors around the clock.

Some of them are friends and co-workers of Ms. Harps; the rest, I'd imagine, are here to see the scene for themselves...perhaps to confirm that such a shocking act could occur in the picturesque residential community where burglary is often the most serious crime making headlines.

Since I haven't posted anything on this crime so far, here is the rough overview: on Monday night, Harps' neighbors reported hearing a woman screaming just after 7 p.m. They called police, who arrived to find the 31-year-old victim bleeding on the sidewalk outside her apartment near 15th & Howell, suffering from multiple stab wounds. Despite being rushed to Harborview by paramedics, Harps didn't survive the night.

And still, there are no suspects to be named. From the P.I.'s coverage this morning:

Witnesses described the man as white, in his 40s, with a scruffy beard 3 to 4 inches long, and wearing a ski cap, blue hooded jacket and baggy pants. He might have worn a yellow hooded sweatshirt under his coat and was seen running east on Howell and south on 16th Avenue, police said.

An alright description, but there's a problem: in Seattle's winters, bearded men in bulky clothing come a dime a dozen. The police sketching that has been released (above) is so vague that it offers little in helping to identify a unique or memorable suspect.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood has seen a significant boost in police patrols. Yesterday I witnessed squad cars all day, parked on street corners and driving up and down some of the upper-teen avenues.

While helicopters hovered overhead and news reporters waited patiently at the scene of the crime for new developments, Capitol Hill's residents have been forced to ring in the new year by coming to terms with a painful realization: even in a close-knit community like the one surrounding 15th Avenue East, crime - and apparently even senseless murder - is a very real threat for all of us.

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The Times Online reports that the court which was to determine whether Knox and Sollecito could be released from custody as the investigation continues, has made a decision:

They can't. It's back to a jail cell for these two suspects.

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It appears that Amanda Knox has no problem answering questions, but the one issue she won't go near is the only one anybody wants to hear about: what happened the night Meredith Kercher was murdered. From this morning's P-I:

Thursday, Turin daily La Stampa published excerpts of a prison interview with Knox, who was visited by an Italian politician, Osvaldo Napoli, earlier this week.

According to the report, Knox said she did not want to answer any questions about "that night" because she did not want to be influenced by outside information. When she sees news about the murder case on TV, she changes the channel, Knox was quoted as saying.

But despite her unwillingness to clarify that flip-flopping story of what happened Nov. 1, the article claims, Knox - perhaps hoping to help sway the judge who will decide sometime today whether she remains behind bars - has expressed confidence in the Italian judicial system.

"What I have to say I want to say only to the judge. And to my attorney. We get along. He gives me a sense of security," Knox told Napoli. "I have faith in your justice system. I don't feel abandoned and I am not afraid, really. I have faith in Italy. I'm waiting. I'm serene. Everything will be clarified."

Meanwhile over at The Times Online, they've got a nice update on some of the details from the suspect's court appearance, which took place this morning.

Amid dramatic scenes in court, Ms Knox broke down in tears as she insisted that she was not at the Perugia cottage when Ms Kercher, 21, had her throat cut.

She told the judge: “I am innocent, I was at Raffaele’s house the whole time.” Speaking in English she added: “I want to tell the truth.”

Crying to the judge? Sounds like that "faith" in the Italian justice system was lost somewhere between her jail cell and the courtroom.

Other notable court developments, as mentioned in the article:

• It was the first time Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, a Romeo & Juliet for the 21st century, have seen each other since their arrests earlier this month.
• Knox reportedly apologized to the judge "for the trouble" she brought on Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese bar owner she initially fingered as Meredith Kercher's rapist and murderer. I guess it's okay to lie to police, so long as you apologize afterwards? Please. The fact that Knox brought a presumably innocent man into the picture and ruined his life cannot be overlooked with a simple apology. Hopefully the judge has the common sense to realize it.
  
• Not surprisingly, attorneys for both of the suspects are working to place the blame on Rudy Hermann Guede, a drug dealer from Perugia arrested in Germany who was recently linked by DNA evidence to the crime scene.
  

In my mind, there's very little question that Guede is fucked. He has admitted to being at the scene of the crime and to having sex with Kercher (sex he claims was consensual, but which still places him closer to the victim at the time death than either of the other suspects currently behind bars). Now it's just a matter of who will take the fall with him.

It looks like Sollecito is the most likely candidate, The Times Online's article implies: Guede is now claiming that he heard Kercher muttering her killer's name in her final moments alive. Can you guess what she said?

His description of the man and his claim that Ms Kercher tried to name her killer by uttering the sound “af” with her dying breath appear aimed at pointing the finger at Mr Sollecito.

Guede, who is in Germany awaiting extradition to Perugia, had equally suggestive statements about Knox.

Mr Guede claims that while he was in the house he saw Ms Kercher discover that money was missing from her bedside table, and says that she accused Ms Knox (who he did not say was present) of stealing the cash to pay for drugs.

The plot thickens. No wonder attorneys for Sollecito and Knox are so aggressively pointing the finger at Guede...it's part of the never-ending blame game.

But, as I pointed out in an earlier post, authorities are saying that Kercher didn't die immediately - it took time for her to slowly bleed out. Did Guede sit with her during that time, which has been estimated to be as long as an hour, instead of alerting authorities? That seems like the only way he could have been there to hear her "dying breath."

No updates yet on whether Knox and Sollecito will remain behind bars, but the article seems confident that the judge will make a decision sometime today.

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That didn't take long.

Rudy Hermann Guede, the fourth suspect named by police in the murder of Meredith Kercher (and subject of the bizarre YouTube video we wrote about yesterday), has been arrested in Germany on suspicion of sexual assault.

He was reportedly caught after falling into a trap that so many criminals in the technology age seem unable to avoid: while he may have been careful to cover his tracks in the real world, Guede's ultimate downfall was his inability to do the same in the digital one.

From The Telegraph:

Police confirmed that he was caught after sending a message to the Daily Telegraph on the Internet.

Police monitoring his Facebook account recorded a message that Guede sent late last night.

At that point, he became traceable through the IP address of the computer he was using.

In the message, Guede said he was aware he was the target of an international manhunt, and wanted to clear his name. He wrote: "I know that [I am a suspect]".

He added: "The reson [sic] I want to talk with police man, cause the news give at me a wrong profile."

Betrayed by your IP address. An all-too-common occurrence nowadays. When will people learn?

The Times Online, meanwhile, is reporting Guede claimed that at the time of his arrest, he was "on his way back to Italy to give himself up." Oh, Rudy...what a stand-up guy.

Judging by the reports, this suspect doesn't seem to be the most beloved man around. The 62-year-old patriarch of an Italian family who adopted him gives us some dirt in The Telegraph:

The father, Paolo Caporali, 62, told the Italian national newspaper La Repubblica: "It is pointless to hide the fact that for me, Rudy was a disappointment. I hoped to help him build a future, I thought I had given him an opportunity. But as the months passed I understood I was mistaken, that my hopes were all met with delusion.

"He said he was at school, but he skipped class. He preferred to spend the day in front of the television or with video games. He had little wish to study, and even less to work." [Emphasis, again, added by the Seattle Crime Blogger - Ed.]

The same article reports that even Georgio Armani, the fashion designer whose photo with Guede (above) has been making its way around the web, was quick to cover his own ass:

On Monday the Armani Group released a statement saying the photograph of Guede with Mr Armani was taken as a tourist photo at the Armani/Nobu Bar in Milan at Mr Guede's request. It said: "Obviously, Mr Armani has never known Mr Guede."

Most likely a wise move. A leading figure in the fashion world, Armani would have some explaining to do further down the line if he didn't nip any possible speculation in the bud.

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Remember the Amanda Knox video that swept the Internet after her arrest, purported to show the young suspect drunk with some friends (a video that has since been removed from YouTube)?

Well, another YouTube video has been discovered, this one said to be of Rudy Hermann Guede, the man police have identified as their fourth suspect in the murder of Meredith Kercher. And this clip is even stranger than it's predecessor. Better watch while you can, because it seems quite likely to be taken offline in the coming days.

I don't really know what to say about this. But in a world dominated by what Monica Guzman at the P-I's Big Blog has aptly called "the court of public opinion," this can't be a good opening statement for Mr. Guede.

This video is just one of a few interesting developments in the Kercher case today. More updates to come this afternoon, when I get home from work and have time for more analysis.

Thanks to the Times Online for finding and publishing the link to the above video.

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The big news in the Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher saga this morning: a fourth suspect exists, folks, and police have reportedly issued a warrant for his arrest.

So who is this mystery man?

We don't know. Local news sources show that police have thus far declined to identify him - perhaps because doing so might make executing said warrant a bit more difficult - but he is, according to the AP article reprinted in the Seattle P-I, "believed to be a [N]orth African linked to drug-dealing who lived near the cottage where Kercher was killed."

Upon news of this development, Charles Mudede at SLOG said it best: "The plot thickens."

It sure does. I can't wait to see A) who this individual is; B) what explanation he has for being in Kercher's bedroom; and C), most importantly, which of the other suspects he points an accusatory finger at first.

Meanwhile, a journalistic aside: for their coverage of these developments, both The Seattle Times and the P-I reprinted the same Associated Press article (written by Frances D'Emilio). But each presented the piece a bit differently from the get-go. A couple of major differences stuck out in my mind.

First, look at how they both begin. Here's the opening paragraph from The Times...

New fingerprints have been discovered on the pillow of a British student found slain in her bedroom in the Italian university town of Perugia earlier this month, a lawyer for the victim's family said Saturday.

...and here it is in the P-I.

New, bloody fingerprints have been discovered on the pillow of a British student found slain in her bedroom in the Italian university town of Perugia earlier this month, a lawyer for the victim's family said Saturday.

While the Times eventually brings up the "bloody" issue, they don't do so until the third paragraph.

[The lawyer] said he did not know whether the prints, described as "bloody," belonged to a potential new suspect in the case but said they did not belong to any of the three suspects now jailed in the probe.

Notice that it's just one word - "bloody" - but it definitely has an impact on how the story reads. Not only does including it in the first paragraph work in the sensationalist angle (which devotee readers will know I'm all for), but it also makes a stronger suggestion that whoever those fingerprints belong to is involved in Kercher's murder. Is the P-I going for shock value, or is The Times just playing it cautious? Or is something else entirely going on here?

Second point of note: The Times completely leaves out any reference whatsoever to the North African suspect! Their article proceeds like this:

The Milan daily Corriere della Sera reported that one of the prints on Kercher's pillow was that of a man's thumb, but Maresca said he had no details about the prints, including whether they were believed to be those of a man.

Knox, 20, and her 23-year-old Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are being held in a Perugia jail as suspects in Kercher's sexual assault and fatal stabbing.

The P-I, meanwhile, has loads of additional information sandwiched between the two paragraphs cited above. I've put this content in bold italics below to further illustrate my point.

Milan daily Corriere della Sera reported that one of the prints on Kercher's pillow was that of a man's thumb, but Maresca said he had no details about the prints, including whether they were believed to be those of a man.

"One step away from (finding) a fourth" suspect, was the headline on the Turin newspaper La Stampa's story about the fingerprint development.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times of London reported that Italian authorities issued an arrest warrant for a fourth suspect, "believed to be a north African linked to drug-dealing who lived near the cottage where Kercher was killed."

Kercher's 20-year-old American roommate, Amanda Marie Knox, a University of Washington student from Seattle, and Knox's 23-year-old Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are being held in a Perugia jail as suspects in the woman's sexual assault and fatal stabbing.

Granted, these differences are largely explained at the end of the P-I article, where it reads that "Seattlepi.com staff contributed to this report." But you'd think that if The Times wanted to provide up-to-date coverage, they'd at least have included more on the "fourth suspect" angle.

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A potential huge break in the Amanda Knox case, which was first reported to me by a commenting reader this morning (and has since even been picked up by tight-lipped Seattle papers).

Word on the street is, DNA belonging to Amanda - and murder victim Meredith Kercher - was found on a knife owned by Raffaele Sollecito. Sollecito, for those newcomers to the site, is Knox's Italian boyfriend (also sitting in a Perugian jail cell, suspected of playing a role in the crime).

Check out the coverage from across the board:

• DNA from Knox and slain roommate reportedly found on boyfriend's knife [PI]
• Meredith suspect's DNA found on knife [Telegraph]
• Foxy Knoxy's DNA found on knife 'used to kill Meredith' [Daily Mail]

Tonight is the first chance I've had in front of a computer to sit down and check out the details. Looks like Knox's hole just got a little deeper.

From the Daily Mail:

The black-handled 7in knife is one of three found last week at the home of Knox's boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in the Italian town of Perugia.

Police said that Miss Kercher's DNA was found on the tip of the knife, while Knox's was found near to the handle.

That's not all...turns out the knife isn't the only place our local celebrity left her genetic calling card, according to authorities:

Local flying squad chief Giacinto Profazio also said that DNA from both Knox and Sollecito has been found on rags at the scene of the crime.

Apparently someone had recently done a hell of a job cleaning out Sollecito's apartment. Cops say that the knife had been scrubbed down with bleach (which was also found all throughout the suspect's home), and that a "blood soaked sponge" was also discovered.

And, according to the Telegraph's coverage, the search also uncovered "several blood-soaked rags, sheets and towels, as well as a bloody blue sweatshirt" in Sollecito's residence.

None of this evidence, it should be noted, has been linked to Congolese club owner Patrick Lumumba. Was he dragged into this as the fall guy for someone else, as the DNA evidence so far seems to suggest? Or is there more to this man, supposedly a well-known figure in the Perugian bar scene, than meets the eye? Only time will tell.

Looks like the suspects are due back in court about 10 days from now. We'll be interested to see what other goodies are revealed between now and then.

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On my post analyzing Amanda Knox's MySpace page, commenter Travis Oberlander writes:

Hey, really great coverage on this story. I've been very interested in it since I'm a UW alumni. The company that I work for has also been following the story as it develops. We actually jumped on it really early and we were able to grab a screen shot of a revealing short story that Amanda wrote and posted to her Myspace blog in 2006. It's by no means a confession but it does give a little insight into her inner thoughts.

Travis has done what I neglected to do during the one day I had access to Knox's profile: he got a screenshot