2:28 PM: Three days after initial word of what led police to 46-year-old Brett M. Gitchel in connection with the disappearance of Leticia Martinez-Cosman, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has charged him with Attempted Murder In The First Degree, Kidnapping In The First Degree, Unlawful Possession of a Firearm in the Second Degree, Theft In The First Degree, Arson In The Second Degree. (We obtained the 2014 mugshot of Gitchel at right from the state Department of Corrections.) The charging documents say authorities still don’t know Ms. Martinez-Cosman’s fate; the attempted murder and kidnapping charges come from what they say he did to her special-needs adult son, as detailed in the probable-cause narrative we published on Friday. The arson charge is related to what’s also described in Friday’s narrative, the fire set to destroy one of Ms. Martinez-Cosman’s cars, found burning on Beacon Hill. We’re still reading the rest of the charging documents and will add to this story shortly.
2:52 PM: Prosecutors are asking for $5 million bail. Their documents also include this, based on cell data:
Historical data records also show that on the early afternoon of 4/01/2023, about 15 hours after Leticia was last seen alive at the Mariners’ game, Brett drove outside of the City of Seattle into a remote mountainous region in King County, stayed for a short period of time and then returned to Seattle, where about 12 hours later he would kidnap and assault her son and burn her vehicle. Leticia Martinez-Cosman is still missing, and though extensive social, public, and national media have drawn attention to this incident, no one has been able to provide evidence of Leticia being alive after she left the Mariners game with Brett Michel Gitchel.
As for when they left, the detective’s narrative in the charging documents says:
Security footage provided by the Seattle Mariners and T-Mobile Park depict Leticia and Brett staying to the end of the game and around 2230 hours walking together out of the park and into a nearby parking garage, where they walk up the stairs to the 3rd floor and walk together toward the parked vehicles. This is the last known footage of Leticia.
The detective’s narrative also notes that a gun was found in Gitchel’s Audi after his arrest – that’s the reason for the unlawful-firearm-possession charge, as he is a convicted felon, with a record listed in the charging document as including seven felonies – three from 2014 related to stolen cars, an eluding conviction that same year, and three felonies in the 1990s – two for theft, one for drugs. One final note from the detective’s narrative details additional security video seen by police:
In the evening of Friday, April 7th, 2023, SPD Detectives were able to view video from a neighboring home of the Martinez-Cosman home for the first time. Detectives located video that depicted Brett Gitchel walking to the front Leticia’s home on 4/01/2023 at approximately 1157 hours. Brett is alone and walks to the front of Leticia’s house out of the video frame and then about 13 seconds later walks back through the neighbor’s video frame away from Leticia’s home. This video footage depicts Brett at Leticia’s home, without her, approximately 13 1⁄2 hours after Leticia is seen leaving with him on the Mariners T-Mobile Park security video.
On Monday, April 10, 2023, SPD Detectives were able to locate and recover surveillance video from the Shell station at 2424 Beacon Av S. Video recovered included the date of 4/02/2023 where after 0600 hours Brett is depicted driving his 1999 tan Audi into the Shell station lot, parking near the gas pumps, removing a light colored jacket and placing it in the garbage, entering the Shell station and purchasing a new red 1 gallon portable gas canister in one transaction, going back and purchasing a lighter in a second transaction, returning to the pumps and filling the canister with fuel,
and then driving away in a northbound direction on 14 Av S. The timing of this activity is approximately 2 hours
after (Leticia’s son) escaped from Brett in Renton and a little more than 30 minutes before SFD responded to 904 Golf Dr S to extinguish Leticia’s burning vehicle.
The document does not elaborate on the “remote mountainous area” to which investigators believe Gitchel briefly drove. It does list a different “last known address” for him – last week’s document said Federal Way, but this one says Orting. Gitchel’s next scheduled court appearance is for arraignment – to enter pleas – on April 24th. Prosecutors note that the SPD investigation remains ongoing, so more charges are a possibility.
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