When we first reported on the Monday morning shooting that killed 56-year-old Anthony Gonzalez at a Delridge encampment, we mentioned police were investigating another shooting in a similar time frame, at 16th/Cambridge. Today the charging documents for Mr. Gonzalez’s accused killer, Jaycee C. Thompson, reveal police believe he’s to blame for the other shooting too. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has charged Thompson, who is 43, with second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, attempted second-degree robbery, and second-degree unlawful firearm possession. The charging documents note the case remains under investigation and so charges might be upgraded or added, but for now, here is the story that prosecutors and police tell in those documents, describing what they call “a multi-location violent crime spree in West Seattle”:
Late Sunday night, several people were gathered in the alley behind the South Delridge 7-11 when Thompson drove up in what was later found to be a white work van stolen from Bothell. Thompson got out holding a “pistol-grip shotgun” and walked toward them. One of them, a man who says he’s a friend of Thompson’s, says the suspect seemed “agitated” and demanded money. The friend thought Thompson was joking – until he hit him with the shotgun. Less than an hour later, a 35-year-old man was shot at 16th/Barton (previously reported as 16th/Cambridge) and taken to a Burien hospital but immediately transferred to Harborview; he’s undergone multiple surgeries for removal of buckshot – associated with a shotgun – from his abdomen. That detail aside, the documents don’t say why Thompson is the suspect in that shooting. But a short time later, 911 calls started coming in about the 26th/Juneau encampment shooting. That’s where the kidnapping charge comes in; as we reported in our first followup, upon arrival at the camp, Thompson is reported to have held a man at gunpoint and demanded to be taken to “Gonzo” (the murder victim’s nickname). A witness who was in the victim’s “makeshift structure” talking with him when Thompson burst in said the suspect asked something like “Where’s the money and drugs?” but didn’t even wait for an answer before shooting the victim in the face, killing him. That witness said Thompson let them go, at which point they ran out into the encampment and told everyone to run because he had just killed “Gonzo.”
On Tuesday night, after a tip, they arrested Thompson near where the “spree” began in South Delridge. The stolen white van was found at 25th/Cloverdale. Police were still awaiting a warrant to search it when the court documents were written but reported that a shotgun was visible through the windows. Thompson remains in the King County Jail with bail set at $5 million.
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