He killed his contractor in dispute over bathroom. Spanaway man, 74, now going to prison
Even a veteran Pierce County judge was at a loss Friday when a 74-year-old Spanaway man appeared before him to be sentenced for gunning down the contractor he’d hired to renovate his bathroom.
Yoon Myong Bang had no criminal history, not even a speeding ticket, prosecutors said. According to court records, he served in the U.S. Army for two years. Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff said Bang had lived his whole life playing by the rules, raising a family and paying his taxes.
“One of the last people in the world I’d ever expect to see in front of me on something like this,” Chushcoff said before sentencing Bang to 15 years, 3 months in prison in the Aug. 28, 2021, shooting death of Scott Odell Howard.
It was the low end of the sentencing range for the second-degree murder charge a jury convicted Bang of last month.
According to charging documents, Howard had been working at the defendant’s home with another contractor for about a week doing tile work, replacing a shower and moving a toilet in the master bathroom. The workers still had about a week of labor to complete when the shooting occurred.
Both Bang’s and Howard’s families asked Chushcoff to show leniency.
Howard’s relatives described him as a man who could be generous but had strained relationships with his family. His oldest daughter, Ashley Howard, said her father lived a life “haunted by his own suffering.”
“I am aware of the tremendous pain in this room, and I will not personally find solace in passing that pain on to another,” Howard said. “I won’t personally find solace in passing that pain onto another daughter for the mistakes of her father. Mr. Bang’s children are deserving of time with their father before his death, just as my siblings and I were.”
Jennifer McDowell, who was Howard’s girlfriend of several years, described him as the love of her life and said he was someone who would mow a neighbor’s lawn without being asked. But she also said Howard could be a difficult person to deal with and that he was proud of it. She said his pride and joy was their daughter, Blake. The girl, 6, addressed the court and said she misses him and that they always had a fun time together going to the park or the zoo.
A witness to the murder — another contractor — told detectives that Bang and Howard had bickered over the quality of the work they’d completed, but there hadn’t been any physical altercations or threats between them. But on that day, an argument about a leaking toilet led to the shooting.
Bang told Howard he wasn’t going to pay him for the work and told him to leave, according to the declaration for determination of probable cause. Howard said if he wasn’t going to be paid, he would break up the tile work he and his coworker had installed. While the contractor went to his truck to get a hammer, Bang left the room to retrieve a 9 mm handgun.
When they returned to the bathroom, Howard allegedly struck the counter without causing damage, records state. The other contractor told detectives that once Bang produced the gun, Howard acted as if he wanted to leave. At some point, Bang pointed the weapon at the victim, and as Howard left the bathroom, the defendant shot him in the head. The other contractor saw Howard lying on the floor.
“[The contractor] asked the defendant, ‘You shot him?’ The defendant replied, ‘Yeah, I shot him. Call 911,’” prosecutors wrote in the trial brief.
When the other contractor went outside to call for help, Bang shot the man a second time, killing him. During the defendant’s sentencing hearing, Chushcoff said the trajectory of the second bullet suggested it was almost a kind of “execution.”
The defendant’s attorney disagreed. Jared Ausserer of Tacoma-based law firm Puget Law Group said he believed Bang fired the second shot because he thought he had to. In his trial brief, the attorney wrote that Bang shot Howard a second time because the victim had regained consciousness and hit him in the leg, and that the defendant shot him out of shock.
Ausserer also took issue with prosecutors’ characterization of Bang. Deputy prosecutor Claire Vitikainen said during the hearing that based on Bang’s testimony at trial, he didn’t appear to be remorseful or regret his actions. The defense attorney said his client was remorseful, and toward the end of the proceeding, after his 80-year-old wife spoke, Bang stood and apologized to the victim’s family.
“I just want to try to say: Scott family, sorry this happened,” Bang said.
