Two deaths in hotel a murder-suicide
Police tried to contact the man inside the hotel at about 4:30 p.m. yesterday, after his relatives in Michigan told them he was suicidal, police spokesman Duane Fish said. The relatives also said the man claimed to have killed his girlfriend Saturday night.
Soon after arriving at the four-star, downtown hotel, police reported hearing a loud noise in the man's room that sounded like a shotgun being fired.
Police spent the next several hours trying to make contact with whoever was inside the room, with no success. Part of Fourth Avenue between Seneca and Spring streets was blocked off. Hotel guests on the eighth, ninth and 10th floors were evacuated as a precaution, but the hotel's lobby remained open, with guests moving in and out of the building.
Members of the department's SWAT team finally entered the room at about 8:15 p.m., and Fish said they found two bodies.
"Both had obvious signs of violence," Fish said.
He said the man's relatives told police he suffered from depression. The man checked into the hotel on Friday. The identities of the two have not been released.
Singer had been dead in apartment for two weeks
SEATTLE — Layne Staley, lead singer for Seattle grunge band Alice in Chains, had been dead in his North Seattle apartment for two weeks, his body surrounded by heroin-injection paraphernalia, before a relative discovered him Friday, authorities said yesterday.
The presence of drug paraphernalia and estimated time of death had not been released initially. Foul play was not suspected, and there was to be no criminal investigation, Seattle police spokesman Duane Fish said.
An autopsy was conducted on Saturday, but the cause of death would not be confirmed for as long as four weeks while toxin tests were being conducted by a state lab, the King County Medical Examiner's Office said.
Canal fails, washing out spur of Highway 503
COUGAR, Cowlitz County — A canal that channels water from one Lewis River dam powerhouse to another failed, washing out a spur of Highway 503 yesterday and doing serious damage to a substation and powerhouses below the break.
The break between the two Swift Dam powerhouses was detected just after 5 a.m.
Graham man, 19, killed as he drives off road, hits fence
PIERCE COUNTY — A 19-year-old Graham man died Saturday after he drove off the road and hit a fence.
Mark Hitchner was driving on 288th Street East near Highway 7, southeast of Fort Lewis, when he lost control, according to the Washington State Patrol. Hitchner was not wearing a seat belt. A passenger in the car, Anthony Arreola, 19, of Wapato, was wearing a seat belt and was not injured.
Man sentenced to 1 year in drug case with Cuban ties
SEATTLE — A man charged in a drug-trafficking conspiracy with roots in Cuba has been sentenced to one year in prison.
Federal prosecutors said Donald Williams, 52, was the last member of a network made up mostly of Cuban immigrants who were charged with distributing large quantities of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine in 2000 and 2001. They also were accused of manufacturing and selling illegal firearm silencers.
Eleven co-defendants already have been convicted of various drug-trafficking charges. Their sentences range from four years and three months to 10 years and one month in federal prison.
Williams was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court.
The investigation of the ring began in June 1999, when Bellevue police began conducting surveillance and undercover work at a crack house in nearby Bothell.
It ended with a wave of police raids in December of last year, in which $2 million in cocaine, heroin and other drugs was seized. Twelve people were arrested.
The ring operated in Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, Kirkland, Bothell and Bellevue.
Times staff and news services.