(KOMO) - Prosecutors have charged a Kent man with murder in the first degree for the death of a 17-year-old boy in SeaTac earlier this week.According to court
Prosecutors have charged a Kent man with murder in the first degree for the death of a 17-year-old boy in SeaTac earlier this week.
According to court documents, Kasim Kone, 19, shot his friend, Vatauomalo "Tau" Leiataua,17, near South 288th Street and Military Road South around 11:00 p.m. on Aug. 2.
"(A medical examiner investigator) believed the pavement was the backstop, consistent with an execution style gunshot to Tau's head as he lay on the ground," King County Sheriff's Office detectives wrote in an arrest report.
SeaTac police were initially called to the scene around 11:30 p.m. when a bystander found Tau's body off the shoulder of the road.
Around an hour into the investigation, several of Tau's friends approached the scene and notified police they were looking for him.
A witness who spoke with police explained Tau and Kone had been walking to Kone's house after the group of friends had been drinking "lean" - a slang term for Codeine cough syrup - and smoking marijuana near the Southcenter mall.
The witness said Kone had also been consuming mushrooms and started acting erratically after receiving a call from his mother telling him to come home.
"(Witness) stated that (Kone) started to act really weird and appeared to be 'tweaking', and said out loud 'I'm too high' several times," the arrest report states.
The group piled into a car, and Kone started giving directions to the driver about how to get to his house.
"They were confusing as he appeared to be very high and was angry and yelling at (driver)," the report states. "(Driver) became lost but eventually arrived at the intersection of 216 and Military Road in SeaTac."
At that point, the witness said, Kone exited the car and said he would get an Uber to pick to him up. Tau also got out of the car and said he would walk with Kone the rest of the way to the house.
The friends later became concerned when they hadn't heard from Tau and returned to the area where he and Kone got out of the car to look for him, which is when they encountered police at the crime scene.
Detectives later found Kone at his house and questioned him about what happened when he was with Tau.
“During the interview (Kone) stated that he did not have a complete recollection of the day due to his use of drugs, saying that he ingested mushrooms, marijuana, methamphetamine, Xanax, and lean," the report states. “He said that he began to try and recall what happened and initially told us that he had an image in his head of Tau lying on concrete but later changed it to ‘someone’ being down on the pavement.’”
Kone is not old enough to legally possess a firearm, but told police he had "acquired" a 9mm handgun for protection.
Detectives found a 9mm handgun near Tau's body and noted initial testing appears to match the weapon the round that killed Tau.
“The defendant provided a statement to police that he was on drugs and he remembers walking with (Tau) and that he had a firearm, but when he returned to his residence he did not have his firearm and did not know what happened to (Tau) although he admitted he remembers a ‘body on the ground'," prosecutors wrote in a request to hold Kone on $2-million bail.
Kone is expected to appear in court on Monday for an arraignment.
