Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. To keep creating
new content, we kindly appreciate any donation you can give to help
the Murderpedia project stay alive. We have many
plans and enthusiasm
to keep expanding and making Murderpedia a better site, but we really
need your help for this. Thank you very much in advance.
Lonnie DAVIS
Jr.
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Parricide - Crime spree
Number of victims: 3
Date of murders:
May 26,
1999
Date of birth: 1977
Victims profile: His mother, Sheila Lindsey, 46, his sister's son, Kahari Prince, 18 months,
and Erma Spence,
63
Method of murder: Stabbing
with knife
/ Beating with
a garden tool
Location: Seattle, Washington, USA
Status: Killed by
a police sniper the same day
Sniper's shot was
justified, inquest jury says
By Scott Sunde - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Tuesday, September 21, 1999
SHORELINE -- A jury decided yesterday that a sniper
with the King County Sheriff's Office was justified when he shot and
killed Lonnie Davis Jr., ending a deadly crime spree.
After listening to a week of testimony, jurors said
in interviews, they found little fault with what Deputy Don Ellis did
that day.
"Don Ellis was trained to do a certain thing. And he
did what he was trained to do," said jury foreman Ram C. Prasad.
The jury's decision was unanimous.
"I'm glad it's over," said Ellis, who had never been
involved in a police shooting in more than eight years as a SWAT team
marksman. "It's unfortunate these events have to occur."
Several jurors, however, did question police tactics
on May 28.
They wondered especially whether better efforts could
have been made to negotiate the gunman's surrender and whether tear gas
should have been fired into the heavily armed house.
"What could have been done to get Mr. Davis to
surrender? We went around and around on that," Prasad said in describing
the jury's deliberations, which lasted more than three hours.
In King County, police use of deadly force goes
before a District Court inquest to see whether law enforcement actions
were proper and to give the incident a public airing.
The jury's decision will be forwarded to King County
prosecutors, who must now decide whether charges should be filed in the
police shooting.
King County has been using inquests after police
shootings since the mid-1980s, and juries typically side with officers.
Other counties in the state use the inquest process sparingly.
The only instance in recent years of a jury going
against police had to do with a shooting in 1992 in Snohomish County. In
that incident, a SWAT team member shot to death a fleeing woman.
The Davis case was unusual because more than an hour
before Ellis made the fatal shot with his .308-caliber scoped rifle, top
officials had given authorization for a "marksman's resolution."
That meant Ellis or the other three marksmen who had
been deployed could shoot Davis if he still presented a deadly threat.
The marksmen are trained to aim for the head.
Davis' family may file a lawsuit over the 21-year-old
man's death. But attorney Michael Jacobson said that decision hasn't
been made.
Lonnie Davis Sr., the dead man's father, attended
parts of the inquest and expressed frustration over the proceedings and
the testimony of law enforcement officials. He said he doubts that the
son he knew could have done what authorities have described.
Police believe Lonnie Davis Jr.'s violent rampage
began in Brier, where he allegedly stabbed to death his mother and
toddler nephew. He allegedly then took a car and fled south on
Interstate 5, where he ran into a motorcyclist.
The motorcyclist's leg had to be amputated.
Davis then ran into a Shoreline neighborhood on
Seventh Avenue Northeast. Within minutes, he had beaten one woman to
death and broke the neck of another.
Davis took refuge in a house that contained eight
guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
He fired on police for several hours, wounding one
officer in the head.
Nothing was said or presented at the inquest in
Shoreline District Court that answered why Davis, who had some brushes
with the law but was considered "sweet" by family members, snapped that
day.
Jurors wondered what sparked it all.
"This was a really violent incident," said juror
Louis Peterman. "What happened?"
The only time Davis communicated with police was when
he emerged from the house to shoot at two SWAT officers. One officer
reported hearing Davis swear at police.
A short time later, Davis appeared in an open window
with a .45-caliber pistol in his hand. From the back room of a nearby
home, Ellis took his shot. The bullet hit Davis in the face, and Davis
died within seconds.
Several jurors extended their thanks to Ellis for the
job he does, and they offered their sympathy to the Davis family. Prasad
also thanked Shoreline Police Chief Sue Rahr for "protecting the
community."
Rahr spoke with jurors after the decision.
Some jurors wondered whether police could have used
other means to try to talk to Davis.
Police negotiators phoned the home where Davis was,
but he never picked up the receiver. The negotiators left messages for
Davis on an answering machine.
One juror noted that Davis was apparently watching
the incident on live television and speculated that perhaps police
should have tried to communicate with Davis through that medium.
The SWAT team fired tear gas only after Davis was
shot. Officers said they had planned to use tear gas earlier, but
neighborhood evacuation delayed that plan.
Lonnie Davis
VICTIMS : 3 dead so far (2 critically injured - maybe
on their way out)
On the last Saturday in May, 1999, a nutter killed his
mother and nephew. They were stabbed to death. He then fatally beat a
woman, critically injured another woman, run over a motorcyclist and
shot a sheriff's deputy. A pretty good effort from a guy that most
thought was a pretty together guy.
Believed to be responsible for it all was 22-year-old
Lonnie Davis, who was shot dead by a police sniper after a standoff with
police in a northern suburb of Seattle.
Davis had previous run-ins with the law in King County
but no known history of violence, Brier Police Chief Gary Minor said.
"I don't think we're ever going to know what set
him off. At this point, we don't have a clue," he said. "We
don't know that he had a history of any mental problems."
It started with the deaths of Davis' mother, Sheila
Lindsey, 46, and his sister's son, Kahari Prince, 18 months. The two
were stabbed to death with a three-inch paring knife Friday morning,
probably around 10 or 11 a.m., Minor said.
Lonnie changed out of his bloodied jeans and T-shirt
and left without washing up.
At about 1:30 p.m., Lonnie, driving his mothers black
Honda station wagon, swerved into a motorcycle on Interstate 5 in
Shoreline, located in King County a few miles south of Brier.
The motorcyclist, Anthony Venegas, 64, had to have his
leg amputated below the knee.
It must have been a fairly violent accident because
papers described the car as being "torn in half and burned."
Davis fled on foot into a nearby neighborhood.
Moments later, a resident called 911 when she heard
Erma Spence screaming for help.
Spence, 63, was found lying in her yard in a pool of
blood, with what looked like a broken posthole digger - a garden tool -
near her body. She was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Lonnie then attacked 82-year-old Irene Hilton in her
yard, hitting her with an object (not yet known what he used) and
breaking her neck and critically injuring her (not sure if she survived),
police said.
Sheriff's officers say the man then found an empty
house that contained a large number of weapons (odd for an American
house to a shitload of weapons available to anyone to take) and started
firing at officers. Deputy Diana Russell was hit in the head by flying
glass and a ricocheting bullet. She was in serious condition that
Saturday night (I don't know if she survived).
King County Sheriff Dave Reichert said his officers
responded with just the single sniper shot (and we all believe that,
don't we?). The officers then fired three rounds of tear gas into the
home, at 15 minute intervals, to make sure the man was down, he said.
"The sniper's shot was meant to kill," said
an honest Reichert. I wonder if this is what police are usually taught
to say. I though they were meant to say that it was an accident, or that
it was in self-defence, or even that the killer took his own life.
"It's a sad thing and it's a tough decision to
make," he said, "but in this case it was the right thing to
do."
