Stalker finds victim at UW, kills her

Rebecca Griego lived in fear of her ex-boyfriend.

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She changed her phone number and moved so he wouldn't find her. She e-mailed his picture to co-workers and asked them to be on the lookout. She even took out a restraining order against him prohibiting him from coming near her or her dog, Zoe.

Still, he called Griego and harassed her, phoning her at work and threatening to kill her as recently as three weeks ago.

He told her that she couldn't find him, but he would find her.

He did Monday morning, showing up at her offices at the University of Washington with a six-shot revolver. He emptied it, killing Griego, 26, then himself.

	KOMO-TV
Rebecca Griego, 26, has been identified as the University of Washington researcher shot to death Monday by a former boyfriend who then turned the gun on himself. The photograph was taken earlier this school year.

Officials did not release Griego's name, but friends and co-workers identified her. Police said the gunman was the ex-boyfriend she had sought court protection from.

Court records identify him as Jonathan Rowan. He was a 41-year-old man who favored tinted glasses and heavy drink. Police reports say he claimed to be from England, but legal problems there kept him from returning.

Colleagues who knew of Griego's troubles were horrified that her worst fears were realized. They had been instructed to serve the man with a restraining order if he appeared on campus. The legal papers were at her desk Monday.

"She's a huge loss," said James DeLisle, director of the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, where Griego served as a program coordinator. "She was everyman's daughter. She was loyal and dedicated."

No one saw the shooting on the fourth floor of Gould Hall, home to the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, police said. But one person reported seeing a man climb the building's stairs with a bag just before the shooting, UW Assistant Police Chief Ray Wittmier said.

Police found the six-shot revolver in Room 442, where the shooting took place.

Possibly hundreds of students were attending classes in the building at 15th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 40th Street when the shooting occurred about 9:30 a.m. Some classes -- the teachers and students unaware that the sounds from the fourth floor were gunshots -- continued until police evacuated the building.

	... She attached pictures of him, and asked co-workers to tell her immediately if they saw him, so she could call police.

Graduate student Adriana Johnson was trying to park behind Gould Hall when a friend called and told her not to enter the building because there had been a shooting. She immediately thought of Griego.

"She did everything she could to put him away, meaning that she went to the police," said Johnson, who worked in the real estate center.

Griego, a UW graduate, had worked at the university for about three years. In recent months, she had told other co-workers that an ex-boyfriend had been harassing her.

"I am having a serious stalker issue right now and the only place the person knows to find me is at my sister's home or the office in Gould," Griego wrote in an e-mail to co-workers on March 7.

She attached two pictures and asked co-workers to let her know immediately if they saw him so she could alert police.

"He should not be considered dangerous to any of you, just me and my family," she wrote.

Lance Nguyen, a graduate student who also worked with Griego, said she had taken pains to hide from the boyfriend, sometimes working from home and even considering riding her bike to work so she could take different routes each day.

"We were on the lookout for her," he said. "She was visually shaken and scared."

Asking for protection

Rowan and Griego began dating in the winter of 2000 and later lived together, according to a police report filed last month. The relationship ended in the summer of 2004, but the two remained friends.

Griego once described Rowan as someone who stuttered when nervous and had a "big tummy." But, in that same report, Griego wrote that he was "likely very dangerous." She described him as a suicidal alcoholic.

She filed for protection against him March 6 in King County Superior Court. In her petition, she listed a litany of threats and abuse at his hands.

More than 18 months ago, Griego said, Rowan shoved her out of a room where they were arguing, slamming her ankle against a door.

Then, on Jan. 5, Griego told the court, she came to their shared home and found Rowan drunk. He began verbally abusing her, and it quickly escalated. He threw glass candlesticks at her, tackled her and punched her.

"I forgave him because he was drunk, but now I see that was wrong, and he has threatened to hurt me again," Griego wrote.

On Jan 5, Rowan was due in Seattle Municipal Court to be sentenced on a drunken-driving conviction, but he never showed, according to court records. A warrant for his arrest was issued and was outstanding Monday.

Griego did not call police after the January assault, but she did move out with her dog, telling Rowan she never wanted to see him again.

She did not tell Rowan where she was moving.

The following month Rowan called Griego, threatening to kill himself because he could no longer see her.

"I never called him back," Griego wrote. "He left numerous 'last word' messages."

Then, on March 6, Rowan called Griego at her work, threatening to hurt her and her dog, telling her to "look over her shoulder."

He called Griego's older sister, Rachel Griego, making the same threats.

That day, both women petitioned the court for protection against Rowan.

"He is now on the run," Rebecca Griego wrote. "He robbed his current roommates this morning and called me to tell me I cannot find him but he can find me (knows my place of work) and to look over my shoulder because I would see him again," she wrote.

UW police said Griego reported to them that Rowan had called her at work March 7 and March 14, threatening to kill her. But she didn't seek telephone harassment charges against him.

Rowan was never served with the order for protection, which was reissued by the courts March 20.

Rowan had a strong British accent. He told his roommate that he was wanted in England and could not return. He reportedly said he had been on the run for 10 years, according to police reports.

Until last month, he lived in a Ballard house that is now being gutted. He was a tenant of Fairwinds Development, a Woodinville company that buys houses and demolishes them to make way for new development.

"He was the nicest guy. We never had a lick of a problem," said Stephen Nielsen, a co-owner of Fairwinds.

Billie Webber lived next door to Rowan in Ballard and remembered him Monday as a strange, silent man.

Rowan, Webber said, wore sunglasses no matter the weather and bought and sold cars to support himself.

"He was in the house most of the time, usually sitting at his computer," Webber said.

A young woman shared the home with Rowan until a couple of months ago, she said. Webber said she believes that woman was Griego.

Webber said that in the short while she knew her, Griego carried an air of sadness. "She never smiled," Webber said. "I didn't know if that was just how she was, or because of this."

'Just starting to know her'

Griego's last move was about six weeks ago.

She rented a basement apartment near Roosevelt High School in mid-February.

"We were just starting to know her," said her landlady, Marika Vanderlinden, who lives in the house upstairs. Griego's apartment had a kitchen and separate entrance.

Vanderlinden said Griego told her about her trouble with the man, but Griego said she "was taking care of it."

"She was very sweet and nice and took her job seriously," Vanderlinden said. "She was happy here."

Colleagues described Griego as bright and generous. In her work for the real estate center, she maintained budgets, researched and advised students.

"She's pretty much the backbone of the whole real estate center," Nguyen said.

After the shooting, classes in Gould Hall were canceled, but classes continued on the rest of the campus.

The shooting recalled a June 2000 incident when a medical resident, about to be fired, fatally shot his supervisor before killing himself.

The gunman, Dr. Jian Chen, a medical resident of one year, had come from medical school in Shanghai to work at the UW Medical Center but apparently was having trouble succeeding because of language barriers. His victim, Dr. Rodger Haggitt, was a world-renowned gastrointestinal pathologist.