He told man he had 72 hours to settle drug debt, then shot him dead. Here’s his sentence
A 25-year-old man who told a homeless Tacoma man he had 72 hours to get him $2,500 for drugs he believed were owed to him — then immediately shot the man dead — has been sentenced to prison.
Jarmal Okim Packard was sentenced Thursday in Pierce County Superior Court to 20 years for the Nov. 21, 2022 fatal shooting of Michael Perdue, 39, at a homeless encampment in Tacoma’s Dome District. Judge Shelly Speir-Moss handed down the punishment after Packard pleaded guilty the same day to second-degree murder with a firearm sentencing enhancement and second-degree assault.
Packard’s sentence was in line with prosecutors’ recommendation, according to court records, a standard-range sentence toward the low end for defendants in similar cases. Packard’s criminal history includes a 2017 conviction for assault with a deadly weapon in California.
Charges of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and unlawful possession of a firearm were dropped in the Tacoma case as part of a plea agreement. Prosecutors wrote in court filings that the agreement held the defendant accountable with a serious felony charge and a substantial prison sentence while also alleviating the need for a trial.
Packard was accused of shooting Perdue in a tent in the 1200 block of Puyallup Avenue where Perdue lived with his girlfriend. According to charging documents, Perdue’s girlfriend told police that sometime before the shooting, she and a couple of friends were approached by the gunman. He was reportedly armed with a pistol with a green laser attached. The girlfriend said the man pointed a gun at them and became angry when he learned Perdue wasn’t there.
The gunman later was identified as Packard. He allegedly was driven to and from the camp by his then-girlfriend, 24-year-old Ivory Lynch-Johnson. She’s accused of helping Packard elude police in the weeks after. Her court case is ongoing, and court records state she has a plea date set for Feb. 1.
Perdue’s girlfriend left the area for a little less than an hour, then returned and spoke to Perdue in their tent. She reportedly asked him who the person looking for him was, but Perdue said he didn’t know. Another man entered the tent, and while they were hanging out, the girlfriend heard a car pull up outside. Records state Packard entered, pistol-whipped the man and pointed the gun at Perdue and his girlfriend.
“The suspect yelled, ‘Give me the blues, where are the blues,’” according to court records. “[Perdue’s girlfriend] told the suspect that they did not have any ‘blues’ and she said that they did not have any money. She stated, ‘We are homeless, and we live in a tent.’”
Packard ordered Perdue to strip off his clothes, and he took a silver chain and ring from him, records state. The gunman pointed his weapon at Perdue’s girlfriend and her dog, and Perdue reportedly begged him not to hurt them. Packard then told them they had 72 hours to come up with $2,500, court records state, or he was going to come back and kill them all, including the dog.
He then turned around, kicked a man in the tent in the stomach several times and shot Perdue in the chest.
When police arrived, they found Perdue wearing only socks and boxer briefs with a single gunshot wound, according to court records. Officers performed CPR, but the man was pronounced dead 15 minutes after authorities arrived.
Packard was arrested two weeks after the murder in Spokane when police there responded to a report of two people illegally living in a vacant home and found him and Ivory-Lynch. According to charging documents in her case, police found guns, ammunition, narcotics and multiple cell phones in a search of their vehicle. Ivory-Lynch was transported to a women’s shelter, and she was arrested in March 2023.
Some of the ammunition matched a shell casing police located at the scene of the fatal shooting.
