Suspect in fatal Puyallup robbery and Tacoma homicide will have 1 trial, judge rules
A teenager accused in the fatal robbery of a Puyallup convenience store owner will have a joint trial for those charges and allegations that he killed another suspect after the fact, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Robbrie Purdell Thompson is charged with aggravated first-degree murder for the deaths of Soon Ja Nam and Franklin Thuo.
His attorneys filed a motion to sever that argued the two homicides warranted separate trials.
“The only facts that tied these two homicides together are the person charged with them,” the motion said. “... Otherwise, they are entirely different scenarios with vastly different evidence, motive, witnesses and factual and legal arguments. In short, they are two distinct cases that should be tried separately.”
Superior Court Judge Philip K. Sorensen listened to arguments from the attorneys then denied the motion to sever.
Sorensen said he thinks it’s clear that there’s prejudice to a defendant whenever more than one count is tried at the same time, but that the question is whether there’s undue prejudice.
In Thompson’s matter, he said he didn’t believe that’s the case. Sorensen said it was in the interest of judicial economy to try the cases together.
Thompson and Thuo were both 16 when they were suspected of robbing the Handy Corner Market on April 27, 2019. Nam, the 79-year-old owner, was shot and killed.
Investigators believe Thuo is the one who shot her, according to court records.
Days later Thuo was found dead with a gunshot wound near the Chinook Marina in Tacoma.
Thompson, now 18, was initially charged with aggravated first-degree murder, first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery, unlawful gun possession in the second degree and two counts of second-degree assault in connection to the Puyallup robbery.
Then last year prosecutors also charged him with a second count of aggravated first-degree murder for Thuo’s death.
Deputy prosecutor Brian Wasankari argued in court Wednesday that “there is no significant disparity between the evidence” in the cases.
He argued that the crimes aren’t just related but are virtually the same incident and that there wouldn’t be prejudice from a joint trial.
The state alleged in its response to the motion that Thompson told someone close to him that the plan had been to take the money and go, and that Thuo had shot Nam. He allegedly said he was worried Thuo would tell what happened, that he got a panicked phone call from Thuo, and that he wanted to kill Thuo to stop him from telling. Later he allegedly told the person he’d killed Thuo.
The state’s brief also said investigators found the bullet that killed Nam was fired from the same gun that killed Thuo, that Thompson’s cellphone was in the area of the marina the night Thuo was killed, and that Thompson searched the internet for “Where is the best place to shoot someone.”
The defense motion argued communications data also “indicated that at least two other persons were present in the immediate area at the approximate time of the homicide” and that they plan to argue at trial that one or both of them shot Thuo, and that the person Thompson spoke to was a confused teenager who misunderstood what he said.
In arguing for separate trials Wednesday, defense attorney Paula T. Olson told the court that the evidence that two other people were present “is, from our perspective, huge.”
Thompson’s motion explained that: “In the second homicide, he anticipates that, if he were tried apart from the first homicide, he has a strong possibility of being found innocent, or guilty of a lesser included offense, because he doubts that the state can present sufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the shooter of Mr. Thuo. It is only if the same jury hears about both homicides with Mr. Thompson at least present at both that would cause them to fill in the blanks left by the state in the second homicide and find him guilty of Mr. Thuo’s murder.”
Olson argued that, while there’s a connection, the homicides are very different.
“We look at it from a standpoint of prejudice and what evidence would be admissible in both cases,” she told the court.
A joint trial, she argued, would deprive her client of a fair trial.
