He told her he had dug her grave, prosecutors say. She wouldn’t leave his truck
The Spanaway man told his girlfriend he had already dug a hole for her body where nobody would ever find her, Pierce County prosecutors wrote.
As the Auburn woman rode in his truck early Friday, he ripped off her underwear, she told police. Then he pulled off the road and told her it was time to take a hike.
She refused.
Now the 38-year-old Spanaway man faces counts of second-degree assault with sexual motivation and felony harassment, for which he was arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Pierce County Superior Court. He is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail.
According to charging documents:
The woman had come to Spanaway to spend the weekend with the man, with whom she has a 2-year-old daughter.
They left their daughter with his mother and went bar-hopping, stopping at a strip club in the 10700 block of Pacific Avenue South.
He stopped paying attention to her, so she said she wanted to leave.
They left the club; she sat in the truck while he went to the adjoining sports bar.
Half an hour later, she went to the bar to get him.
So they went back to the strip club.
He stopped paying attention to her, so she said she wanted to leave.
The two again left the strip club, but he wouldn’t let her into his truck this time.
As she walked toward a nearby business for help, he yelled at her to get in the truck, then pulled her into the truck by her hair while uttering a vulgarity at her.
He drove toward his home, but went right at the Roy Y, instead of the left-hand turn he needed to make.
The man told her they were going on a drive, and that he wanted to make love to her under the stars. Then he told her he hated her and had been planning to kill her.
She told him she wanted to go to his house, but he pulled out a knife and pointed it at her.
That’s when he told her he had already dug the hole for her grave, and that nobody would ever find her.
The woman told deputies the man had worked for the federal Bureau of Prisons but lost his job after threatening to kill his ex-wife. He said he had learned to get away with murder while working in the prison system, which she believed.
The man slammed her head into his dashboard repeatedly as he drove and spit in her face multiple times. He also ripped off her underwear and fondled her.
He pulled off the road and told her they were going on a hike, but she refused to get out of his truck.
He pulled her out by her hair and she hit the ground.
She refused to get up, so he acquiesced and took her back to his house, forcing her to take a shower.
He went through her phone, questioned her about text messages and berated her for cheating on him. Then he threw her phone into his neighbor’s yard.
He went outside to smoke, so she got into her car and fled to a gas station, where she called 911.
She had left her purse in his truck, so when Pierce County sheriff’s deputies met with the man, they asked him if they could get it from his truck.
He gave them permission to search the vehicle, in which they found the woman’s pair of ripped underwear.
The man’s truck was impounded, and deputies noticed fresh mud in its wheel wells, even though the roads to his home are all paved.
Kenny Ocker: 253-597-8627, @KennyOcker
This story was originally published May 30, 2017 at 4:01 PM with the headline "He told her he had dug her grave, prosecutors say. She wouldn’t leave his truck."