9 Die In Homicides In One Week In Pierce County

LAKEWOOD, WA - Just before midnight last Monday, Pierce County deputies responded to a gas station along Canyon Road East in Frederickson. At the scene, police found Edward Anthony Pilotte II, 18, bleeding and unconscious inside his car.

Minutes later, he was dead from a stab wound.

Pilotte was the first of nine homicides in Pierce County over the last week - one capped Tuesday by a murder-suicide in Spanaway that took the lives of a mother and her two young children.

On Thursday morning, three people died in a suspected DUI crash along I-5 in Lakewood. Red Montrell, 23, is facing three counts of vehicular homicide for allegedly causing the crash. Montrell was allegedly using Xanax and texting his girlfriend when he hit a car driven by Jaime Pelayo Pelayo, 30, of Kelso. Pelayo Pelayo's Honda CRV flipped over and crashed into an overpass, killing him and passengers Sherry Rodriguez, 44, and a 51-year-old man from Longview.

Early Sunday morning, Rhonda Randle, 63, was killed inside her Tacoma home. Her son, Julian Randle, 28, has been arrested for her murder. He allegedly called police around 4:30 a.m. Sunday to report that he'd shot his mother.

Less than 24 hours later, police responded to a rural area near Orting on a report of a woman with a gunshot wound to the foot. She told police that she and another man were shot inside a remote treehouse near the Carbon River. A Pierce County SWAT team went to the treehouse Monday morning and found a man's body inside. The treehouse had been burned down. Just after 7:30 a.m. Monday, police located a suspect nearby and arrested him on murder and assault charges.

Finally on Tuesday morning, the sheriff's office reported a horrific triple murder in Spanaway. A 29-year-old airman stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord shot and killed his 33-year-old wife and his two young children, ages 2 and 4. He called 911 to report the killings, and then shot himself.

The one thread that ties all these homicides together: police have arrested a suspect in each case except Tuesday's murder-suicide.

Tyler J. Wallace, 20, has been charged with second-degree murder in Pilotte's death. He is being held in jail on $1 million bail.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday afternoon noted that there have been 10 murders so far in 2018 in unincorporated areas - that's more than the total number in all of 2017.

Image courtesy Pierce County Sheriff