King County prosecutors on Tuesday charged a 77-year-old man with first-degree murder, accusing him of lying in wait and fatally shooting a man he suspected of stealing tools from his truck in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood.
Thomas Donaghe, also known as Thomas Vigil, was booked into the King County Jail on Monday afternoon and remains in custody in lieu of $2 million bail, jail records show. According to prosecutors, Donaghe was living in a recreational vehicle at the time of the Oct. 30 homicide, has few ties to Seattle and has family in Colorado.
He is to be arraigned Dec. 6. Court records do not yet indicate which attorney is representing him.
“The defendant allowed his anger over stolen property to grow into murderous intent to hunt and kill the thief,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Donald Raz wrote in charging papers. ” … When the thief did return, rather than calling law enforcement as told to do by police, he confronted and killed the man.”
Tyler Raymond, 28, died from a gunshot wound to the chest in a parking lot in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood, the charges say.
A day or two before Raymond was fatally shot, Donaghe called police to report that his Ford pickup, parked in an empty lot in the 3200 block of 20th Avenue West, had been prowled and that someone had tried to steal an arc welder that was bolted to the truck bed, the charges say. Footage from an officer’s body-worn camera showed that officers told him to call 911 if the thief returned, and Donaghe replied that if officers did come back, they should bring the “M.E.” with them, a reference to the medical examiner.
A woman flagged down officers a little before 3:30 a.m. on Oct. 30 and reported finding a man unresponsive in a parking lot, Seattle police said at the time. The man, later identified as Raymond, died at the scene.
During the homicide investigation, Raymond’s girlfriend told detectives she had fallen asleep in their car while Raymond went to steal items from vehicles parked near West Bertona Street and 20th Avenue West. When she woke up, she found Raymond on the ground, the charges say.
Detectives found several tools, including a drill and a couple of screwdrivers, on the sidewalk south of Raymond’s body and nearby, and a tarp spread beneath a pickup. Police determined someone had tried to cut the bolts attaching an arc welder to the bed of the truck, say the charges. Police say Raymond was wearing a headlamp when his body was found.
Detectives learned the pickup was registered to Donaghe, who lived in his RV in the 3400 block of Thorndyke Avenue West, several blocks east of the shooting scene.
Police used cellphone records, video-surveillance footage, text messages and witness statements to counter Donaghe’s insistence that he wasn’t involved in the shooting, the charges say. Confronted with this, police say Donaghe admitted he shot Raymond with a .22-caliber handgun and threw the firearm into the water off Fishermen’s Terminal, according to the charges.