A serial killer stalking Tacoma’s homeless? Authorities say they’re not aware of it

The rumor posted on Facebook over the weekend is grim: 10 homeless Tacoma residents killed in the past two weeks, their throats slashed.

It sounds frightening, but so far, no evidence has emerged to give it validity.

“We haven’t had anything like that,” said Tacoma police spokeswoman Loretta Cool, who added that police would have responded to calls related to such incidents. She said police would have alerted the public and media outlets if such an extreme series of homicides had taken place in recent days.

The allegation, posted Aug. 12, comes from a Tacoma man who cited street contacts as his sources. He wrote that 10 people had been murdered in the downtown area over the previous two weeks. The man did not respond to a message from The News Tribune.

Answering skeptics on Facebook who questioned the validity of the rumor, the man repeated the claim and said he was getting his information from “actual people who live on the streets,” later adding, “If you are waiting for the police or TNT to give you accurate information, you can keep dreaming.”

The post swiftly generated scores of comments and questions, catching the attention of Pierce County Council candidate Marty Campbell, among others. Some commenters asked for clearer evidence.

One local woman added more specifics, claiming two people were killed near the Tacoma Nativity House at 702 S. 14th Street, and eight more were killed near the intersection of South 25th Street and Pacific Avenue — all within the past two weeks. The woman added that the killings “would not make the local news” and later commented that she heard the information from people staying at the Tacoma Rescue Mission.

Noah Baskett, senior director of community engagement at the mission, said he hadn’t heard of any killings as described, from people staying at the mission or anyone else.

“That’s complete news to me,” Baskett said. “We would have heard about that. I would have heard about that.”

The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office, tasked with responding to and assessing all unnatural deaths in the county, said no deaths of the type described had been reported recently.

The News Tribune also tracks local homicides and noted an apparent spike across Pierce County after a spate of killings earlier this year. However, reporters found no evidence of a recent series of killings in the homeless community. Internal records kept by reporters list 11 homicides within Tacoma city limits in 2018, 12 in 2017. Those numbers are derived from reports to the Medical Examiner and Tacoma police, as well as subsequent criminal charges tied to such events, if and when they are filed by county prosecutors.

Jack Cameron, a Tacoma writer who has tracked all city homicides for the past several years, also found no information to support the rumor. On Facebook, after checking the rumor with his own sources, he dismissed it.

“The Homeless Throat Slasher is the product of someone’s imagination or such an ingenious killer that he leaves no evidence of his existence, including no bodies,” Cameron said.

This story was originally published August 13, 2018 at 5:07 PM.