Suspect charged with murder and animal cruelty in fatal carjacking of 80-year-old dog walker

SEATTLE (AP) — King County prosecutors filed charges Friday against a man they say forced his way into a vehicle occupied by a beloved 80-year-old Seattle dog walker and then running over her, killing her, and later stabbing her dog to death.

Jahmed Kamal Haynes, 48, was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree assault and first-degree animal cruelty, according to a document filed with the court. Prosecutors asked that he be held in the jail without bail and the judge agreed. Haynes is scheduled to be arraigned on Sept. 5.

It was not immediately known if Haynes had a lawyer or would be assigned one by the King County Public Defense office. Officials say they don’t believe Haynes knew Dalton.

Ruth Dalton was parked on the side of the road in Seattle’s Madison Valley neighborhood at about 10 a.m. Tuesday when Haynes got into the passenger side, prosecutors said. Dalton started to drive away while Haynes tried to take control of the vehicle, they said. He pushed her out and onto the road, backed into several parked cars before driving over her as he fled the scene, prosecutors said.

Several bystanders tried to intervene, one carrying a bat or stick, but Haynes threatened them with a knife, prosecutors said. After he left, the witnesses attempted life-saving measures but Dalton died at the scene.

After leaving the neighborhood, Haynes stabbed Dalton’s dog to death in a park, prosecutors said.

“The sheer brutality of the defendant’s actions that morning was only further demonstrated by how he disposed of evidence of his crimes: disposing of Dalton’s dog in a recycling bin and destroying Dalton’s phone,” Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brent Kling said in his request for a no-bail hold.

Seattle police identified the suspect after someone reported that a man was hurting a dog in the park. Officers responded and found Dalton’s car nearby and were able to get fingerprints from her cellphone, Seattle police Deputy Chief Eric Barden said during a press conference Wednesday.

When police arrested Haynes near his home, he was carrying a knife that had blood on it and the keys to Dalton’s Subaru, Barden said.

Haynes has an extensive and violent criminal history, prosecutors argued when asked that he be held without bail.

He was convicted of vehicular homicide in 1993 for driving recklessly down Seattle streets and on to a sidewalk, crashing into several vehicles and killing a driver. After serving his sentence, he was convicted in 1999 of robbing a Safeway store using a BB gun and vehicle theft, Kling said.

While in prison for those crimes, he attacked two corrections officers in 2003 using a 12-inch (30.5-centimeter) piece of metal that had been sharpened to a dull point, Kling said.

“In short, the level of violence the defendant has shown he is capable of, not only within the day the presently charged crimes were committed, but over the course of the last 30 years demonstrates a propensity for violence that conclusively shows that he is a danger to the community,” Kling said.

The judge agreed.