A 19-year-old Washington state woman has been jailed on a murder charge for allegedly killing her 73-year-old landlord.
The King County Sheriff’s Office said it got a call from the suspect’s brother-in-law just after 7 p.m. on Friday telling officers that the suspect had told her sister that she’d killed someone and showed her the body in a video call, KOMO reported.
Dispatchers sent deputies to the location and called the suspect with information provided by the brother in law and sister, KIRO reported. She told the dispatcher that “it was all a joke and that she was all the way in Everett with a friend,” according to a probable cause statement reported by KOMO.
Later, however, she told the dispatcher that “I killed her,” saying the elderly landlord “tried to punch me, and I stabbed her.”
When officers arrived, they found the dead woman.
The document said the suspect had lived in the building for a year and admitted that “recently she had been behind on rent.” On Friday, the landlord called. her into another room asked about when she would pay her rent. The suspect said the elderly woman “struck her in the face during this exchange,” prompting her to hit her back “hard” and then grabbed “a knife that was already in the room” and stabbed her.
The suspect said the elderly victim “pulled her hair and the drawstring on her hoodie during the struggle, and that she responded by grabbing a nearby knife and stabbing.”
The document also said the the brother-in-law told investigators that the suspect had been making threats to kill the landlord for a month “if she asked her again about paying rent,” but said he and the suspect’s sister didn’t take the threats seriously. They said they had also lived at the building but moved out last month. The landlord called them to complain about the suspect not paying rent.
The documents state that the suspect’s brother-in-law told detectives that she’d been making threats to kill the landlord since last month, “if she asked her again about paying rent.”
The suspect is being investigated for second degree murder and is being held on a $2 million bail. The names of the suspect and victim have not been released.
