Court filings reveal a history of safety concerns at a Pierce County home where five people were killed Tuesday after a stabbing rampage ended when a deputy shot and killed the suspect.
Deputies initially responded around 8:45 a.m. to the 14000 block of 87th Ave Court Northwest for a report of a man violating a protection order. By the time the first deputy arrived, he found the suspect actively stabbing someone. The deputy shot and killed the suspect. Four stabbing victims, all adults, died from stab wounds inflicted by the suspect before police arrived.
Police said the suspect is a 32-year-old male but have not publicly identified him. Court records show that last year, a woman who lived at the home had petitioned for a protective order in Pierce County Superior Court, citing threatening behavior by a 32-year-old man who lived there.
According to the April 2025 petition, a woman said her son had been abusing her physically and mentally. “Doing witchcraft/occult behavior and doing rituals in my home, damaging personal belongings. Hurting my cat. Thinks an Egyptian God! Refuses to get a job. I am an elderly disabled woman, and he is taking advantage of me and my health,” the woman wrote. The petition described an April incident where family members noticed things missing and were alerted to a strange smell coming from the garage. “The smoke detector was going off, and my son was acting delusional. Evidence of occult rituals was present,” the woman wrote.
Court records show the petition was granted and served shortly after. Investigators said the protective order at the center of Tuesday’s dispute had not yet been served on the suspect, so it is unclear if it was separate from last year’s petition. The deputy went into the scene without backup to confront the suspect as the scene was still active. The deputy is part of the Peninsula Detachment of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, which covers the rural western area of the county.
Sources confirmed that the deputy who responded was the only deputy working in his assigned district at the time. Despite significant population growth in the area, sheriff’s staffing has declined in recent years, with around 50 deputy vacancies reported last year. The Pierce County Force Investigation Team is now in charge of the shooting investigation involving the deputy. Deputies in Pierce County are equipped with dash cameras and body cameras, but those videos are generally not made public until the investigation concludes, which can take years.
