Woman agreed to drug deal with a new customer. He shot her dead in Tacoma, records show
A man accused of killing a woman last week in Tacoma after allegedly attempting to buy drugs from her was charged Wednesday in her death.
Prosecutors charged Michael Deda, 41, with second-degree murder, first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm for the death of 42-year-old Soohui Kim. Charging documents allege Kim set up a drug deal with Deda Sept. 22 at an apartment complex near the area Kim was found shot.
Deda pleaded not guilty at arraignment Wednesday in Pierce County Superior Court and his bail was set at $1 million.
Officers from Tacoma Police Department arrested Deda on Tuesday after reviewing video footage captured across the street from an apartment complex on South Puget Sound Avenue where Kim was shot. Officers also used cell phone records to review messages allegedly sent between Deda and Kim.
In a Sept. 22 message sent to Kim, a contact listed as “Mike Stereo,” who prosecutors believe to be Deda, asked the woman how much she would charge for a half-pound of “clear,” according to the declaration for determination of probable cause. “Clear” is a shorthand term for methamphetamine.
Charging papers gave this account of what happened:
TPD officers were dispatched at about 4:40 a.m. Sept. 22 to a convenience store near South 47th and South Oakes streets for a report of a possible shooting.
A witness reported the shooting to police and said his friend had been shot and was sitting in her SUV near South 47th and South Pine. Prosecutors wrote that the witness also appeared to have been injured with a bullet graze wound on his left forearm.
When officers found the vehicle, they saw multiple bullet holes on the driver’s side of the car and found an unresponsive woman, later identified as Kim, slumped over in the driver’s seat. Kim was pronounced dead on the scene.
The witness told police he had known Kim for about a year, prosecutors wrote. He said the two of them went to a casino in King County around 8 p.m. the night before and stayed until 1 a.m. The two drove around the rest of the night until they parked at an apartment complex in the 4500 block of South Puget Sound Avenue.
Once there, the witness said, he saw a dark figure behind their vehicle, then heard four gunshots, according to the probable cause statement. Kim drove out of the parking lot going south on South Puget Sound Avenue, turned east onto South 47th Street and crashed. Then the witness ran to the nearby convenience store and called 911.
The witness later told police Kim had methamphetamine in the backseat of the car in a backpack, prosecutors wrote. The witness also said Kim asked him for his input on whether it would be OK to deal with “a new customer named ‘Mike,’” who prosecutors later identified as Deda.
A video camera across the street from the shooting location appeared to show an SUV matching the description of Kim’s vehicle parking in the apartment complex’s parking lot, according to the charging document. Two men approached the vehicle, and as one neared the passenger side door, five to six gunshots can be heard. The SUV almost immediately drove off and one of the men went on foot north on South Puget Sound Avenue.
Officers obtained a warrant to search Kim’s cell phone and found messages between her and a contact listed as “Mike Stereo.” According to the charging document, messages between the two sent Sept. 22 appeared to negotiate a drug deal and set up a meeting.
Police connected the phone number to Deda by searching phone records, which showed it was an AT&T number registered to a woman thought to be Deda’s wife.
Prosecutors also noted that cell records showed the phone number pinged at 4:30 a.m. Sept. 22 in the area of the shooting.
When Deda was arrested, he told police he didn’t know anything about what happened to Kim, according to the probable cause statement. Detectives asked where his wife’s phone was, and he said it was stolen when his car was stolen in mid-September.
Prosecutors wrote that when detectives showed Deda surveillance photos taken of him by tracking the AT&T phone number, Deda said he was the person depicted in the photo.
According to the probable cause statement, when confronted with the fact that detectives tracked him to the location where the photo was taken using the AT&T phone number, Deda denied it and ended the interview.
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 3:44 PM.
