Tacoma man charged with killing ‘complete stranger’ as he ate takeout in his car
A Tacoma man has been charged in King County with a deadly carjacking. Prosecutors say the man shot a stranger who was eating in his parked car last month at a Federal Way shopping center, then pulled the person from the vehicle and stole his car.
Leonel Gonzalez, 35, was charged Friday with first-degree murder and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm in King County Superior Court for the Dec. 8 fatal shooting of 21-year-old Ruvim Stukov.
Prosecutors asked that Gonzalez be held without bail, citing the man’s five prior felony convictions as well as the “brutal” and “senseless” nature of Stukov’s killing. He is to be arraigned Feb. 3 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
In charging papers, prosecutors said Gonzalez and Stukov were “complete strangers” and that the defendant approached the victim while he was eating takeout alone in his car.
“Within just a few seconds of approaching the victim’s car, the defendant shot the victim three times, killing him,” prosecutors wrote.
Gonzalez is being held in Pierce County in lieu of $125,000 bail on pending charges of third-degree rape and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. According to charging papers filed in those cases, Gonzalez is accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl at a Fife motel in July.
In December, Gonzalez was arrested after he was found passed out on a Pierce County bus in possession of a firearm that was reported stolen to Lynwood Police Department.
The string of crimes Gonzalez is accused of occurred just months after he was released from prison. He was convicted in 2016 of first-degree attempted robbery in King County and released in June.
Charging papers gave this account of the carjacking:
Federal Way police responded about 9:47 p.m. Dec. 8 to 1409 South 348th Street, a parking lot at a shopping center, for a report of a shooting. A 911 caller told police the shooter fled in a silver car.
There, officers found a man, later identified as Stukov, unresponsive and lying in the lot just north of a store front. He was declared dead at the scene.
The 911 caller told police she was with a friend in a vehicle in the same parking lot and recalled Stukov’s vehicle being parked with the engine running “for quite some time.” According to the declaration for determination of probable cause, the caller saw a man approach the driver’s side of the car while holding a handgun above his head, pointed down toward the car.
The witness heard gunfire and ducked out of view. When she looked up again, she saw the car driving away.
Members of Stukov’s family went to the scene that night and told police he had been driving his brother’s silver Toyota Camry.
The Toyota was reported stolen, and police were able to track down the vehicle to an address in Tacoma the next day, where it was found locked and unoccupied. After obtaining a search warrant, police searched the vehicle and found the car’s front license plate on the passenger seat.
A fingerprint from the license plate was matched to Gonzalez on Jan. 7, and detectives learned he was being held at Pierce County Jail, charging papers say. When detectives searched Gonzalez’ property at the jail through a search warrant, they found a wallet, bank card and phone charger believed to belong to the victim.
Police also found a receipt with Stukov’s father’s name on it and a document stained with blood that had Stukov’s name on it, according to the probable cause statement.
Using surveillance video and phone records, police were able to track Gonzalez’ movements in the hours leading up to the murder.
