Police Say Troubles Of 16-Year-Old Led To 4 Shooting Deaths
The burdens weighing down 16-year-old June Walker were tremendous.
Despite a good grade-point average and dreams of becoming a nurse, she dropped out of Garfield High School last year as a junior. She told her godmother there was too much going on for her to handle school.
Spats with the young man she had known since Washington Middle School days, the father of her unborn child, were frequent. She'd tell him to leave and at least twice tried to break off their relationship. He'd come by in the early morning to talk, and they'd be back together again.
Sunday they argued again. This time, police said, the fight ended in tragedy. Four people were left dead, each with a single gunshot wound to the head.
"As best we know, it started out as a domestic situation between Walker and the suspect and escalated to the point where all four people were shot to death," said Seattle homicide Lt. George Marberg.
Killed were: Walker, who was about seven months pregnant; her mother, Pamela Denise Roberts, 38; Roberts' boyfriend, David Wayne Jones, 47, and his daughter, Danielle Jones, 16. All lived in the triplex near 10th Avenue and East Alder Street.
The 18-year-old suspect was arrested yesterday morning at his mother's home in the 500 block of 25th Avenue. He had returned from Kittitas County, where police say he was involved in the shooting of a 14-year-old companion at a rest stop along Interstate 90.
The suspect's mother said her son had invited some of the victims into their home for meals, television and to play Nintendo.
"That's the thanks you get? (They say) he's a murderer," she said. "He has done nothing. If he had, it would have been in self-defense."
The quadruple murder stunned Walker's friends at Garfield High.
"They're shocked," said senior Tiffany Tull, 16, who knew the girl since seventh grade. "People are talking. Some people didn't want to believe it."
Walker had tried to break up with the suspect in the summer, early in her pregnancy, but the 18-year-old "couldn't take it," said Ternise Williams, 16.
Friends described Walker as sweet, outgoing and friendly, always smiling, always joking. They talked about doing something to remember her life and mark her death, so close to her Jan. 5 birthday.
Perhaps, Alesia Davis said, they'll do nothing else the day of her funeral but attend the service.
"She was one of our homies," said Lexia Powell, 17. "We need to have something. Do something."
The summer of Walker's freshman year Alesia Davis' parents took the girl in as their goddaughter, taking her to church, buying her clothes, trying to help.
"She was like a second daughter," said Davis, 17. The two were best of friends until they had a falling out.
Walker turned to a diminishing number of school friends for help when she was troubled. They could read bad times on her face.
"When she had a problem, she'd rather talk about it than keep it inside," said Lettice Trahan, whose family also tried to help Walker.
The girl would spend some school nights at Trahan's house because of family problems.
Marberg said that police believe the shootings took place sometime Sunday afternoon. The bodies were discovered by Jones' brother shortly after 4:30 p.m.
After the shootings, the suspect apparently headed to Yakima but became involved in an accidental shooting at the Indian John Hill rest stop on I-90, four miles east of Cle Elum, sometime before 10:45 p.m. Sunday.
His 14-year-old companion was wounded in the leg.
Bob McBride, Kittitas County sheriff, said the suspect was questioned, then cited by a deputy for reckless endangerment.
The deputy did not realize the suspect was being sought in connection with the Seattle killings, and he was released, McBride said. The suspect's gun was confiscated and will be checked to see if it was the murder weapon, Marberg said.
The 14-year-old, who is from Seattle, was treated at a clinic and then transferred to the Kittitas Valley Community Hospital. A spokesman there would give no details.
Including Sunday's deaths, there have been 63 homicides in Seattle so far this year, police spokeswoman Vinette Tichi said. There were 43 for all of last year, which was far below the average of about 55 homicides each year.
This year's total includes at least one other multiple slaying:
one last February, when a man killed his three children, his wife and himself in their apartment on 36th Avenue South.