Pierce County teen charged with fatally stabbing his mother’s boyfriend during fight
A Pierce County teenager is accused of fatally stabbing his mother’s boyfriend during a fight in their shared apartment unit on Wednesday.
Prosecutors charged the 15-year-old with second-degree murder. Prosecutors filed a motion Thursday that they would seek to decline the charges into adult court. A hearing has been scheduled May 19.
The News Tribune generally does not name teenage suspects who have not yet been charged as adults.
A plea of not guilty was entered on the teen’s behalf during his arraignment Thursday at the Pierce County Juvenile Court. Judge Joseph Evans ordered that he be held in secure detention.
The victim’s identity has not yet been released, pending confirmation from the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Charging details
Deputies were dispatched at around 1:42 a.m. to the 1000 block of 76th Street Court East after a neighbor said someone was yelling to call 911 for an ambulance. Dispatch learned that a man who rented the unit was stabbed in the neck, according to charging documents.
Documents show the 15-year-old was on the scene and allegedly had blood on his face but no visible injuries. He was taken into custody. The victim was taken to Tacoma General Hospital where he died. The teenager allegedly told deputies he stabbed the man and that he did not mean to do it on purpose.
Detectives learned that the victim was having a dispute with his girlfriend, the 15-year-old’s mother, documents show. Neighbors heard yelling and objects being thrown in around in the unit just before someone screamed for help. The woman’s 9-year-old son was also in the apartment at the time.
Documents show the teenager’s mother told her sons not to speak to detectives. She told detectives that she came home around 11:30 p.m. from a friend’s house and got into an argument with her boyfriend. He accused her of cheating, and the argument became loud.
The 15-year-old came into the room, and, according to the mother, said something disrespectful to her, documents show. The man got mad at the teenager and eventually chased the 15-year-old into his room. After hearing them yelling at one another, the mother said, the man came out with a stab wound to his neck and she ran to get help.
The man told the woman he loved her and that “he did not intend it to go down like it had,” documents say. The woman said that her son stabbed him, but she did not see it happen.
When asked why the teen stabbed her boyfriend, the mother said the victim had assaulted her during their argument. Detectives noted there was small bruise next to the woman’s eye and swelling near her jawbone. The woman denied that the injuries came from her boyfriend, saying he was a good man.
The woman said that her son never had a physical fight with her boyfriend and he called him dad, documents show.
Detectives found the knife used in the stabbing stuck in a spice rack, documents show. There was large amounts of blood in one of the rooms, which detectives believe is where the incident happened.
The teen told deputies that during the argument, the victim told him to “shut up.” The teen said he got scared so he grabbed a knife. He reportedly thought the man had hurt his mom, documents show. He said the victim pushed him into his bedroom and threatened to knock him out. The teenager told deputies that he would never hurt the man.
