We only have the following blurb from the Seattle Police Department, and have not heard any other news. We will post more as we hear it. Please feel free to add relevant details in the comments.
Copied from the press release:
Homicide detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a woman found inside her Wallingford residence Monday morning.
At approximately 9:20 am, North Precinct patrol officers were summoned to a residence in the 1300 block of North 43rd Street. A friend of the 38-year-old victim came to the residence and discovered the victim inside, apparently deceased. Police and Seattle Fire were called to the scene, but the victim was pronounced dead.
Detectives were called out to the location to begin their investigation and CSI processed the scene.
This remains an active and on-going homicide investigation working in conjunction with the King County Prosecutor’s Office and the King County Medical Examiner. Anyone with information on this incident is urged to contact the Seattle Police Homicide Tip Line at (206) 233-5000.
UPDATE 3/13 1:45 PM:
Neighbors and friends have identified the victim as Lita Byrnes. She was well known to the community as a admin of the Wallingford & Fremont Community Facebook page as well as the Buy Nothing Wallingford (Central/East) Facebook group.
I only met her recently (she cat-sit for us while we were on vacation), but she struck me as a warm and good-hearted person. I have seen her work online to help people in need and foster community through the above groups. Her Facebook page is filling with personal memorials as my heart and eyes are filling in tears.
We don’t have any more information about the perpetrator, but at a commenter has noted that they saw someone being led away in handcuffs by the police.
– Jordan
(Photo from Lita’s Facebook page)
This is just awful. She was a positive and constructive voice I was very familiar with. I hope they make progress in the investigation soon. Selfishly I hope they give some more information soon so that the neighborhood knows of this was random, targeted, known suspect etc. Sorry to be that guy but I assume most of us are devastated first and worried shortly thereafter.
My deepest and most sincere condolences to those close to Lita.
Please remove her name. Does all of her family even know yet ?
They do.
We’ve created a fundraising page to help her family with funeral expenses
http://www.youcaring.com/litabyrnes-1129543
This is shocking. She has helped me with my computer a couple of times.
I’m soooo sorry to hear about the death of one of our neighbors. My condolences to the family. I didn’t know her but it sounds like she was a great person. Funerals are extremely expensive. A Gofundme fund raiser might have been better for donors. A charge of $7.50 to donate through You Caring is a bit high. And the characters for entering comments on the fund raiser is too limited. I hope more information about how she died and why is forthcoming!
May she rest in peace!
I had no charge when I donated through youcaring- it asked for a tip donation but that was optional.
Sorry Elisabeth, I saw no available option, it just automatically tacked $7.50 onto my donation.
You have to click other on the drop down menu and then manually enter “0” but it can be done.
Oh, thank you Kimberly. I didn’t know that. Then that’s what happened. I didn’t see anything that allowed me to say yes or no on the $7.50 tip and didn’t realize one had to enter a number in the tip amount. I guess I got fooled. Thanks. That’s another reason I prefer the Gofundme process.
Gofundme recently changed to the tip model too. They used to take a percent. I guess the transparency is better?
RIP
Here’s a bit more information from the Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/slaying-of-wallingford-woman-leaves-community-in-shock/
Any news? There were rumors around “an eviction argument gone south.” Someone taken away in handcuffs. I can’t find anything new.
If a transient was involved, it’s highly likely you won’t hear anymore about it in the media. You might tweet the SPD or call their public information officer. Or file a FOIA request for the arrest and investigation documents.