Drive-by shooting that killed teen in Lakewood started with argument over girl

The drive-by shooting Friday in Lakewood that ended with the death of a 15-year-old boy started over a girl.

Chase McKee was not the target. A friend standing next to him, who’d been exchanging threats with the girl’s new boyfriend, was.

But McKee was shot in the head in a hail of bullets fired from a passing car outside an apartment complex in the 8300 block of 83rd Avenue Southwest.

On Monday, Pierce County prosecutors charged Billy Williamson, 22, with first-degree murder and five counts of first-degree assault.

He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held in lieu of $2 million bail.

A boy and girl, both 16, were arrested and expected to be charged in McKee’s death later this week.

McKee died Sunday after being hospitalized for two days. No one else was wounded in the shooting.

Charging papers give this account:

McKee’s friend said he and Williamson “had been posting comments back and forth on Facebook about shooting each other and fighting one another.”

The friend sent Williamson GPS coordinates and told him to come to fight.

McKee, the friend and three other teens waited in the stairwell of an apartment complex. When the ex-girlfriend sent McKee’s friend a text telling him to come to fight, the group went out front.

A car drove by slowly. Two people inside opened fire. McKee fell to the ground after being shot.

At the hospital, his friends told detectives what happened.

A SWAT team Saturday found the car used in the shooting outside a Spanaway home, but nobody was in the home.

On Sunday, the 16-year-old boy and girl were arrested while driving. Williamson turned himself in.

The girl initially said she was driving when someone in McKee’s group shot at them, so Williamson and the boy returned fire.

The boy told detectives they planned to shoot McKee’s friend in the leg before Williamson beat him up, but the girl yelled for them to open fire as they approached the group.

He said he used a BB gun. However, investigators said they found five .22-caliber and two .40-caliber shell casings.

This story was originally published March 6, 2017 at 7:02 AM with the headline "Drive-by shooting that killed teen in Lakewood started with argument over girl."