Tacoma man killed mother when she told him to ‘get out,’ according to murder charges
A Tacoma man who reportedly has an undiagnosed mental illness was charged Thursday with murdering his 66-year-old mother inside her home.
Michael Robert Gese, 31, is accused of stabbing the woman in the neck with a steak knife Wednesday, then fleeing the Central Tacoma home before police arrived. The victim has not been publicly identified. Police said before she was killed, the victim called 911 and reported her son was having a mental health crisis.
Police found the defendant downtown that afternoon and arrested him near Pacific Avenue and 11th Street.
Gese was charged with first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder in Pierce County Superior Court. He was expected to be arraigned Thursday afternoon, but the defendant waived his right to appear, and a defense attorney requested a competency evaluation to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.
Court records show Gese has no prior felony convictions and little other criminal history. According to the declaration for determination of probable cause, he reportedly suffers from undiagnosed schizophrenia and “drug induced mental health issues.”
An issue over whether Gese could continue to stay at his mother’s house might have led to the stabbing, according to charging documents. Court records say he’s lived at the home in the 800 block of South Anderson Street for more than a year. In an interview with Tacoma Police Department detectives, Gese allegedly said his mother had asked him to leave, but he said he didn’t want to because he would be homeless.
“He said that he had to ‘Pop the robot’s head off,’ which he was trying to do, stating that would ‘release him for work,’” prosecutors wrote in the documents.
Officers were dispatched to the house at about 6:40 a.m. While the mother was on the phone with 911, records state dispatchers heard her say, “Get out,” followed by a male voice screaming. The woman said, “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” then only the sounds of a person gasping for air could be heard.
The door to the house was locked when officers arrived. Police said officers forced their way in after circling the home and seeing the woman lying unresponsive on the floor. According to the probable cause document, she was found with a stab wound to the neck and what appeared to be defensive wounds on her hands. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
A serrated steak knife was on a couch, and a trail of blood led out the back door, but officers couldn’t find the son.
Detectives later obtained surveillance video from inside the victim’s house that allegedly showed what happened.
The mother was on a couch in the living room talking with 911 when Gese approached from the kitchen, records state. The man was seen jumping on the woman, stabbing her in the neck and then pushing her to the floor. He then ran from the house and threw the knife onto the couch.
In his interview with detectives, Gese allegedly said he waited in a wooded area after he left the house, then eventually walked to Wright Park. There, he said he washed blood off his hands in a bathroom. He said he was walking toward Tacoma’s waterfront when police located him.
When detectives asked how he felt about what had happened, Gese allegedly said: “Sad, like a funeral.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2023 at 1:28 PM.
