Mukilteo murder-suicide was planned, police say

MUKILTEO — A Mukilteo man who shot and killed his estranged wife before killing himself last week had outlined his plan in letters he left for his relatives, police said.

"He said he planned to kill her, and he wasn't going to go to jail," said Mukilteo Police Chief Michael Murphy.

Murphy said Ryan Baldwin, 33, may have believed he could be in violation of the state's "three strikes" law if he'd been convicted of assaulting his estranged wife, Tawni Baldwin.

Ryan Baldwin, who used to go by the name Ryan Bussanich, was convicted of two counts of second-degree assault in Lewis County in 1989 and 1990. He was also convicted of first-degree burglary in Yakima County in 1994.

Baldwin shot his wife, who planned to divorce him, and then shot himself. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled the deaths a murder-suicide.

When police arrived Friday morning at the apartment the couple had once shared, they had heard reports that Baldwin had grabbed his wife by the neck and dragged her at gunpoint into the apartment.

Tawni Baldwin had shown up at the apartment to gather the last of her belongings. Movers who were helping her downstairs neighbors called police after seeing Ryan Baldwin chase her with a gun, Murphy said.

Police tried to negotiate, but Baldwin refused to release his wife. About 45 minutes after officers arrived, they heard three gunshots from the apartment.

A Snohomish County SWAT team entered the apartment about two hours later and found the couple on the bedroom floor. Both had died of gunshot wounds to the head.

The 9-mm handgun Ryan Baldwin used in the shootings had been reported stolen from Arlington.

Police also found a gun in Tawni Baldwin's purse, but Murphy said it probably was never taken out.

"It was registered to her," Murphy said. "It may have been for protection from him, but we just don't know."

Tawni Baldwin, 30, had worked near Lynnwood as a medical assistant but eventually left to start a business with her husband, according to friends. The two operated the Raceway Cafe inside the Traxx Indoor Raceway — a go-kart facility — beginning last summer.

But Tawni Baldwin's plans to end the marriage prompted the couple to sell the cafe to the track's owners in December, track employees said.

She also said she wanted to spend more time with her 12-year-old daughter, who wasn't home during the shootings.

Jennifer Sullivan: 425-783-0604 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com