A 19-year-old woman was killed in South Hill. Suspect arrested in Canada
Detectives said a 19-year-old woman was fatally shot at a South Hill home Monday and that a 26-year-old suspect who was being sought on a warrant was arrested in British Columbia hours later.
Jordan Eaton illegally crossed into Canada, tried to run from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was arrested in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer told The News Tribune.
Troyer said Eaton was found at a hospital but was not injured. He’d gone there to use the phone.
Eaton had the gun believed used in the homicide, Troyer said, and a van he reportedly stole from a Puyallup business following the shooting was found abandoned in Whatcom County.
According to a Sheriff’s Department press release:
Deputies responded to a 911 call about the shooting at 4:14 a.m. in the 15100 block of 71st Avenue East. They learned that a man had reportedly shot his girlfriend inside a residence there, then fled with a gun. The woman died from her injuries.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office had not released the name of the victim by midafternoon Monday.
Troyer said detectives are investigating who lived at the home and the relationship between the suspect and the victim.
Property and court records show that Eaton’s parents own a home in the block where the shooting happened and that they sought protection orders against him in 2016.
“He has anxiety and anger issues and needs mental health help, anger management and drug and alcohol rehabilitation,” one of their petitions reads. “He has abused me and my wife both physically and verbally and has continued to destroy our property including the house, possessions within the house and vehicle and has pawned several things of ours in the past.”
Court records also show that Eaton is accused of using a baseball bat to smash the windows of his girlfriend’s mother’s vehicle May 10, 2018.
He had his first court appearance in that case last week, Jan. 22, at which he pleaded not guilty at arraignment to second-degree malicious mischief. He was released on his own recognizance.
Eaton’s previous convictions include fourth-degree assault, unlawful gun possession and unlawful solicitation to possess a gun.
Charging papers in one of those cases say in 2015 he grabbed a gun following an argument with his parents, threatened to kill himself, fired a shot in an unknown direction, then fled.
This story was originally published January 28, 2019 at 10:18 AM.
