3rd killing linked to domestic violence

Police are investigating what may be a murder-suicide in West Seattle as possibly the third domestic-violence homicide locally in two weeks.

Saturday, officers found the body of a West Seattle man in his home and that of his wife in the couple's van. The 44-year-old man had apparently taken his own life, but it was unclear Tuesday how his wife was killed while authorities continued to investigate.

Also on Tuesday, King County prosecutors charged a Federal Way man suspected of killing his girlfriend with first-degree murder, adding domestic violence as an aggravating factor.

Police say Chan Ok Kim, 68, stabbed his girlfriend to death only hours after he was served with an anti-harassment order and forced to leave his home.

A friend called police after Kim said he was going to kill himself and his girlfriend, Baerbel K. Roznowski, 66, according to court documents. An officer who responded to the house found Kim stabbing himself with a steak knife, lying next to Roznowski, who had stomach and chest wounds and died at the scene.

Kim told police his girlfriend gave him two hours to move out and after he began fighting, he "went crazy" and admitted to stabbing Roznowski, according to court documents.

In a separate case, Juan Carlos Bonilla, a man with a long history of beating and abusing his wife, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in King County Superior Court to second-degree murder with domestic violence as an aggravating factor.

Police say Bonilla killed his wife, Debra Lynn Bonilla, on April 19 in front of their young children, according to court documents. Officers discovered her body early that morning.

The most recent alleged domestic-violence death in West Seattle was discovered early Saturday morning.

According to a Seattle police report, a relative of Jeffery W. Creamer told officers last weekend that he hadn't heard from his brother in two weeks.

The man became worried when his repeated phone calls to Creamer went unanswered, so he went to check the home in the 200 block of Southwest Roxbury Street.

When nobody answered the door, the man climbed inside the home and discovered Creamer's body about 9:30 a.m. Saturday. He had cut his wrists in an apparent suicide.

The man called 911, and when officers arrived, he also said no one had heard from his brother's wife, Traci Creamer, in the past two weeks.

Police made several efforts to contact the woman's friends and relatives without success, according to the report. One person told officers she had last spoken to her April 23.

Officers searched the area around the home but initially found nothing. Someone later spotted the couple's van parked to the east of the residence with what detectives described as "an obvious odor of decomposition," according to the report.

Officers opened the van up and found the woman's body in the rear.

Traci Creamer, 48, was likely strangled, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office.

Her husband's death was ruled a suicide.