Fatal stabbing in Tacoma stemmed from drug deal, records say
A fatal stabbing in a Tacoma parking lot stemmed from a drug deal, according to court documents.
On Wednesday, Pierce County prosecutors charged Shawn Shelby Teeter, 53, with second-degree murder. Superior Court Judge André Peñalver ordered him held without bail while he undergoes an evaluation to determine his competency to stand trial.
Medical examiners have not publicly identified the 46-year-old victim, who was found about 10 p.m. Sunday in a grocery store parking lot in the 7200 block of Pacific Avenue. He had a single stab wound to the chest.
He died while undergoing surgery at Tacoma General Hospital.
In his backpack, police allegedly found suspected heroin, a loaded .22 caliber gun, ammunition and $397 in cash.
Charging papers give this account of the homicide:
Teeter and the victim knew each other, and Teeter was angry with the other man because he believed he’d recently been sold bad drugs, friends of the victim told detectives.
One of the victim’s friends saw him at a Pacific Avenue home about 8 p.m. and, when he returned to the area about 10 p.m., saw the victim’s bike lying on the ground. The victim’s girlfriend said he left to make a drug deal.
Teeter left an apartment then returned to get a switchblade and lighter, records say.
Surveillance footage from nearby businesses shows the victim riding his bicycle to a spot on Pacific Avenue, where he met a man later identified as Teeter. There was an altercation, then the victim got off his bike, grabbed his chest and collapsed on a curb, prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
The suspect could be seen in the video running from the area.
Detectives were able to identify Teeter due to a limp seen in the video and because he was wearing the same clothes as the suspect when he was treated the following day for cutting himself in the 1100 block of South Fawcett Street.
Officers did not realize at the time that Teeter was a homicide suspect and let him go after the cutting encounter. He was arrested without incident Tuesday.
“The defendant made several spontaneous statements after his arrest, to include: ‘He took my money, he stole my money. And later he said, ‘I only got one drop of blood on my shoes,’” according to charging papers.
After Teeter was booked into Pierce County Jail, he called a woman and “rambled” about how the victim had killed two of his friends and stolen money, records say.
He denied stabbing the victim but told the woman he “poked him with a switchblade,” prosecutors wrote.
Teeter has several prior criminal convictions, including for first-degree manslaughter in connection with a fatal stabbing in 1994.
Staff writer Alexis Krell contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 11, 2021 at 12:55 PM.
