Suspect in Harps killing linked by DNA

A felon diagnosed with schizophrenia who boasted to police that he "always carries a knife" was linked Friday through DNA evidence to the New Year's Eve killing of a Capitol Hill woman, according to Seattle police and court records.

Homicide detectives were questioning the suspect Friday afternoon in connection with Shannon Harps' death after the State Patrol Crime Lab matched the suspect's DNA to evidence from the crime scene, Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer said.

The suspect, a 48-year-old transient, had been in the King County Jail since Jan. 16. Community corrections officers had arrested him for violating his probation when he missed a session with his mental health provider, the state Corrections Department reported. He was booked late Friday for investigation of homicide, according to jail records.

Detectives first interviewed the suspect on the night of the slaying after he was seen hanging around nearby. Suspicious about his behavior, detectives asked him to submit a DNA sample and he agreed, Kimerer said. The suspect had mentioned that someone else told him about a woman stabbed nearby.

"He was in the area and was certainly on the list of individuals that we were following up on. He was not the primary suspect because there were some circumstantial issues that made that difficult," Kimerer said at a news conference. "I think it's pretty prescient of the detectives to say, 'Well, could you give us a (DNA) swab?' "

Harps, 31, was stabbed multiple times as she tried to enter her condominium building in the 1500 block of East Howell Street. Witnesses heard her screaming and saw a man running away.

The slaying unnerved the Capitol Hill community and prompted police to boost patrols in the neighborhood.

Residents expressed relief Friday upon hearing of the arrest.

"Hopefully they can be a little more sure and a little more confident about their own safety because it is our belief that we have someone who committed a horrible crime in custody," Kimerer said.

Police did not describe the nature of the DNA evidence against the man. The Seattle P-I is not naming him because he has yet to be charged. The P-I also did not name a previous person of interest in the case who was questioned in the case last week but was not charged.

Police were unable to say Friday why Harps was stabbed, but she and the suspect did not know each other, Kimerer said. Harps had recently moved from Cleveland to work as the Northwest regional organizer for the Sierra Club.

"This was a stranger-to-stranger homicide. There was no previous connection, nor relationship, nor any kind of previous contact," he said.

The suspect has bounced in and out of mental health facilities and the court system since he was a child, court records show.

Until recently, he had stayed at the Arnold R. Berkley halfway house on Capitol Hill's East Union Street. People described him as transient and recalled seeing him at bus stops around the neighborhood, but police were still sorting out where "he hung his hat," Kimerer said.

In 1995, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison for shooting and wounding a man in downtown Seattle. Since his release from prison, he's been arrested twice for harassment, most recently on Sept. 22.

That day, police were called to the East Union Street home after the suspect threatened to hurt another resident and the apartment manager.

When officers arrived, they found him in his apartment surrounded by empty beer bottles. Officers also found a small steak knife on the floor near the man's refrigerator. When police asked him to come out of his apartment, he became "belligerent" and clenched his fists. Police arrested him and detained him, finding an 8-inch knife in the front pocket of his hooded sweat shirt, police reports say.

According to the report, the man told officers he "always carries a knife" for protection. Officers collected the knife as evidence, and found several more blades during a search of the apartment. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail for breaking his probation, the Department of Corrections reported.

Seattle Municipal Court documents also show he was charged with two counts of harassment for a March 16 incident. Charges were later dismissed after he was found incompetent to stand trial.

Before his legal troubles in Washington, he'd been convicted four times for assault, including once for attacking a 51-year- old Oklahoma woman. While serving a three-year sentence in Texas for check fraud in the late 1980s, the man displayed "homicidal and suicidal" ideas as well as severe delusions, according to doctors' notes.

"He feels that both God and the devil are out to do him harm so he carries a knife with him and keeps a loaded gun by his bed," a Texas Department of Corrections physician wrote in 1987.

The physician went on to say that, during a five-month-long methamphetamine binge before his arrest, he believed "he was an FBI and CIA agent, and that he also worked for the U.S. Army, God, and the devil."

Doctors in Texas and Arkansas determined that he suffered from schizophrenia and other serious mental conditions. They prescribed him anti-psychotic medications, court records say.

Washington psychiatrists who evaluated the man in 1995 diagnosed him with "antisocial personality" but did not think he was mentally ill, contradicting the previous evaluations in other states.

He was ordered to take his first anti-psychotic drugs at age 12, when he was institutionalized after suffering a nervous breakdown and experiencing hallucinations, according to court documents filed in the 1995 case.

How the suspect might have crossed paths with Harps was unclear.

Brady Montz, who worked with Harps, rushed to the Police Department's news conference after reading about the arrest. He remembered Harps as someone who, "no matter who you were, she helped."

He said he would have been surprised if Harps had been killed by someone she knew.

People who live or work on Capitol Hill reacted with relief to news of the arrest. Veronica Silva, who works two blocks from where Harps was slain, was giving high-fives to customers.

After the slaying, Silva clutched a ballpoint pen that she could use as a weapon if she felt threatened on the street.

"Now that he's caught I'm so relieved for the whole community. Women took self-defense classes, were always looking over their shoulder. Now ... oh, wow. Hallelujah!"

Michael Wells, president of the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce and owner of Bailey-Coy Books on Broadway, said he also hopes Harps' family could take some solace from the arrest.

"The neighborhood has certainly had this new kind of fear because of this random violence," he said. "I hope this helps the Harps' family find some closure."