Day Of Rage By `Quiet, Loving' Son -- Apparent Suspect In Rampage Had Served Time For Assault

Lonnie Davis was a mama's boy, an only son who volunteered at his mother's office and socialized with her friends. Even as a 21-year-old, Davis still answered to the nickname his mother gave him as a toddler: "Boo."

He also was a juvenile felon who chronically stepped on the wrong side of the law.

But the balance of bad never tipped his mother's devotion away from him.

Nor was it strong enough to explain what triggered Davis to apparently snap in a blaze of violence Friday, leaving his mother and his 18-month-old nephew stabbed to death in their Brier home.

And that was only the beginning of a long day of carnage that police, relatives and neighbors are at a loss to understand.

Although police won't formally confirm that Davis was the assailant in the Friday rampage, his family members and friends huddled in Rainier Valley that day to begin their grieving.

Relatives declined to talk to reporters Friday or yesterday, asking that they be allowed to mourn privately.

But acquaintances, neighbors and court records sketch a tragic duality to Davis' personality, a water-and-oil mix that made him seem like two different people.

Davis was no stranger to police. He had several encounters with the law in his short life, and spent three years in custody. He was being sought on a $10,000 arrest warrant on a drug-possession charge.

But those who knew him in his other life don't remember him that way. To them, he was Shelia Lindsey's golden boy.

And the night before both died - she, stabbed to death along with her 18-month-old grandson; he, shot to death by a police sharpshooter - Shelia Lindsey braided her son's hair in precise cornrows, according to Brier Police Chief Gary Minor.

`A very nice, quiet boy'

Lonnie Davis was a small boy when his parents moved the family from California to the Seattle area some 15 years ago. Lonnie Davis Sr. and his wife, Shelia, settled in Rainier Valley and became active in Mount Zion Baptist Church.

Lonnie Davis Sr. is a construction worker who helped build Bill Gates' Medina mansion.

Shelia Davis - now Shelia Lindsey after she divorced and remarried - was a pioneer in a Seattle family-support program that helped elementary-school children. She was known to love young children, and to dote on her only son.

The younger Lonnie Davis attended an ethnic school at Mount Zion as he was growing up, and the family often had Sunday dinner at Deaconess Reba Fleeks' house after church.

"He was a very nice, quiet boy who played with my grandson," Fleeks said. "I remember when he got in some trouble at the juvenile center, but this just shocks me."

Neighbors said police told relatives - including Davis' father and two sisters - that Shelia Lindsey was dead along with her toddler grandson, Kahari Prince, and that Lonnie Davis was suspected, and was now believed dead himself after a standoff with police.

And between the time Shelia Lindsey died and the time her son did, a retired Shoreline woman was also beaten to death, a neighbor seriously injured, a motorcyclist maimed and three police officers hurt.

"Why he would kill his mother, I don't know," Fleeks said.

"He had to be on drugs because he was too nice a child to do this. It must have been something strong."

Juvenile record

The Davis family separated about five years ago. Shelia moved to Brier to live with her husband, Jimmy Lindsey, last year. Lonnie Sr. still attends Mount Zion, usually showing up for the 7 a.m. Bible class every Saturday.

Yesterday was an exception.

Sharon Williams lives next to Davis' sister, Shelonda, and Shelonda's husband, Mark Prince, at the end of a quiet, dead-end road in Rainier Valley. At one time, Davis, his mother and his sister Michelle also lived in the home.

They were a tight family, said Williams, who remembers Lonnie Davis as a "nice kid."

"I had heard he had a record, but he was trying to straighten himself out. He seemed to be getting his life back on track," she said.

Court records show Davis was convicted of stealing a car in 1993, when he was still a juvenile. A year later, he was convicted of fourth-degree assault and sentenced to three months community supervision; he was ordered to stay at home and attend school.

In 1995, Davis was convicted of first-degree robbery with a deadly weapon.

Brier Police Chief Minor said Davis spent three years in juvenile custody for an assault charge. Last year, Davis was convicted of driving with a suspended license and resisting arrest.

In March, he was convicted of drug possession.

Details of those convictions are sketchy because many are part of juvenile-case files, and because full records couldn't be obtained on the weekend.

Family friend Theresa Lucrisia-Bradley didn't want to talk about the darker part of Davis' life as she visited Shelonda Prince's home yesterday morning.

Lucrisia-Bradley worked with Shelia Lindsey at the Family Support Worker Program, a city project that sought to help young schoolchildren and their families obtain social services.

Just this past Wednesday, she said, Lonnie Davis spent part of the day at the program office on Aurora Avenue, stacking paperwork and laughing about his upcoming job search. Earlier this month, Davis graduated from the Seattle Jobs Initiative, a city-sponsored job-training program.

And the evening before, Lonnie Davis and his mother joined a friend for an evening out.

"He had a gentle spirit, just like his mother. He loved her so very much," said the friend, Mary Miller, another of Shelia Lindsey's co-workers. "Something tragic must have happened to that young man."

No signs of family strain

Friends of the family say Lonnie Davis got along well with his stepfather, and there were no signs of family strain. Some said he had moved to Brier a few months ago to live with Jimmy and Shelia Lindsey, although neighbors there don't remember him.

"In reinterviewing other members of the family, there was nothing to indicate he would do this," said Minor, the Brier police chief.

The King County Medical Examiner's Office is scheduled to examine Davis' body today. It may be some time before blood tests are evaluated.

Until then, those who knew and cherished Lonnie Davis say they can only guess at what caused a deep love of family to turn into an apparent cascade of rage.

"There was nothing wrong with Lonnie," said Williams. "But everybody snaps every now and then."

Reporters Robert T. Nelson and Linda Keene contributed to this report.

Alex Fryer's phone message number is 206-464-8124. His e-mail address is: afryer@seattletimes.com