Docs: Fall City murder suspect’s previous defense team accused of violating court order

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO) submitted documents this month requesting a judge force the previous defense team for the 15-year-old boy accused in the murder of five members of his family in Fall City last month to provide copies of all materials obtained during their investigation of the crime scene.

Specifically, prosecutors stated there is “evidence that defense’s search exceeded beyond what was permitted” and accused those involved in that defense investigation late last month of moving items at the crime scene they weren’t supposed to touch, entering a room they were not supposed to be in and moving items while in that room and removing one item from the crime scene entirely.

The defense attorney who filed motions ahead of the crime scene investigation is a staff attorney at the King County Department of Public Defense — ACA Division, the documents state. Two lawyers from the office were assigned to defend the 15-year-old suspect.

The court documents were acquired by KIRO Newsradio and MyNorthwest from independent journalist Steve Hickey, PhotogSteve81 on social media.

Murder in Fall City: What happened on Oct. 21

Early on Oct. 21, five members of members of the Humiston family in Fall City were murdered in their home.

The three children killed have been identified as Benjamin Humiston, 13, Joshua Humiston, 9, and Katheryn Humiston, 7. In addition, the children’s parents were also killed. They have been identified as 43-year-old Mark Humiston and 42-year-old Sarah Humiston.

Law enforcement from all over the region responded to multiple 911 calls regarding the mass shooting that morning. When deputies arrived at the home, they found the victims shot to death.

“Very, very sad,” King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall told KIRO Newsradio in a press conference near the scene of the crime. “Very disturbed. I know that my team will do an excellent job in investigating this and we will determine the facts related to this incident.”

The 15-year-old boy, identified as the son of Mark and Sarah Humiston and the sibling of the three children killed, has been charged with five counts of aggravated murder in the first degree and one count of attempted murder in the first degree, according to the KCPAO. The attempted murder charge has a firearm enhancement and each of the six charges has a domestic violence designation.

A fourth child shot at the home — the 11-year-old sister of the suspect  — was previously released from the hospital and is expected to live.

The teen suspect is currently in secure detention at the Patricia H. Clarke Children and Family Justice Center in Seattle.  Whether the case gets moved to adult court has not yet been determined.

During a hearing last month, Judge Kristin Richardson ordered the suspect not be photographed, videotaped or recorded above the shoulders and noted that his face should not be on TV at this point, which included images from elsewhere. The judge also ordered the 15-year-old not be named.

Why the Fall City suspect’s attorneys sought access to the crime scene

On Oct. 26, defense attorneys for the teen suspect filed a motion to preserve evidence after learning the suspect’s maternal grandmother, listed as Ms. Ogden, was not going to let the defense team back in the home where the murders happened. She also had hired a cleaning crew to come into the home. Ogden was dubbed as the trustee of the residence after the murders.

Court documents from the prosecutors state the defense was first permitted to enter the home Oct. 23, before it was released back to Ogden. The defense submitted in its document that they entered Oct. 24.

The defense’s motion to preserve evidence states attorneys were allowed into the house and were unable to touch items, move things around or complete a full investigation during their first visit to the house. In addition, there were “numerous items defense wanted to review further, but were unable to given the limits imposed.”

“Here, it is critical defense have full access to the crime scene,” the defense’s motion states. “If the home is cleaned and items are destroyed before defense can access it, evidence will be lost and defense will have no means of obtaining that evidence in the future.”

A second document defense attorneys filed regarding preserving the scene — a declaration in support of the motion to preserve the scene submitted on Oct. 28 — stated the defense team was only allowed in the house for one hour and there were multiple items they wished to preserve, including notes on papers written by the suspect that appear to have been written in another language.

The declaration document stated the defense planned to bring in its own forensic expert to scan the premises on Oct. 29 to get “a complete digital picture of the home.” They also sought to “document and photograph and blood spatter, evidence, and potential ballistics that may exist” inside the home.

At the end of the declaration document, the defense attorneys noted “several items of evidence we saw in the house that we feel should have been collected by the police that were not.” In order to respect the privacy of the family, the defense team did not want to list on public record the items they saw.

The declaration document concludes with the filing attorney noting her experience as a defense attorney and why she felt it was important the defense team have access to the house.

“It is my experience that law enforcement can and does engage in bias investigations when they think they have the ‘right’ suspect,” the declaration document reads. “In my experience, it is beneficial for defense to have an opportunity to investigate the crime scene in this case free from this bias.”

A judge ordered the home be sealed and locked after the motion to preserve evidence was filed Oct. 26 and a second judge issued the order the defense was permitted to enter the home on Oct. 28.

The court order granting the defense’s team access to the residence — the Oct. 28 document — permitted the defense team to enter the home Oct. 29 for 10 hours — 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. KCSO officers were permitted to stay outside the home as the defense completed its work.

The defense attorneys were among the members of the team allowed in the home.

“They say, ‘Not only do we want access again, we shouldn’t have time constraints. We shouldn’t even be supervised by King County Sheriff’s Office. They shouldn’t be able to hear us, see us, be anywhere in the home. We should be because we are officers of the court. We believe that we are do this right.’ Everybody I talked to said that is unprecedented,” Hickey said to KIRO Newsradio. “That’s just not how it is done. But that’s what they’re asking for.”

The court did not permit the defense team to search file cabinets, containers or digital devices. Instead, they were just permitted to view items “in plain view.” The defense team also was not permitted to remove any item from the residence and if there were any items the team did want to collect as evidence, the KCSO would handle that process, including logging, packaging and retaining them.

In addition, the court’s order instructed the defense team to stay out of the bedroom of the family’s lone survivor of the mass shooting, the 11-year-old girl who managed to escape.

Prosecutors: Multiple items were moved at the Fall City crime scene

The document filed by Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jason Brookhyser of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office on Nov. 4 — the motion to compel discovery regarding defense search — details multiple items throughout the house were moved, illustrating examples of the defense team exceeded what was permitted and not abiding by the court’s order in a multitude of ways .

Among the items moved was one of the children’s backpacks moved slightly, while another backpack was moved to a distinctly different location. Three other backpacks were discovered to have been moved in various ways too. Also, pairs of shoes that were not placed in any particular order under a bench were arranged under the bench and that included one of the shoes that was previously found outside the home.

Going further, a bottle of Clorox wipes was in the house prior to the defense team’s arrival on Oct. 29 and was missing when the KCSO team went in to take photos later.

Moving to the girls’ bedroom, despite the order to stay out of the survivor’s bedroom except for scanning, prosecutors say someone “moved and manipulated” items on the survivor’s bed and that of her younger sister who died in the shooting. Also, a small box on the surviving child’s headboard was moved to the headboard of her younger sister.

Looking at the bedroom where the boys slept, two bookcase doors that were closed previously were found to be open by KCSO investigators. In addition, they discovered “items on the floor were significantly altered, indicating that someone had handled many of the items piled there.”

Clothes that were initially photographed under a mattress had been moved to a nearby area in the bedroom.

“From (the) KCSO’s documentation of the residence before and after defense’s search, it is clear that defense counsel and their agents exceeded the permitted scope of their search under the court’s order,” the prosecutors’ Nov. 4 document reads. “Examples of these potential violations include defense handling and moving items in the front entryway, as well as the girls’ and boys’ room to observe what was not in plain view.”

Hickey found it strange so many items were found and so many issues were discovered during the process.

“How just egregious this was how that doesn’t even seem to be an attempt to hide it,” Hickey said to KIRO Newsradio. “It’s all very odd and if you read the order which is in the doc, you have it was written pretty bluntly. I don’t think they can make an argument that they didn’t know. They also argued when they got this motion approved that we’ve done hundreds of cases many of which are murder cases. This is not new for them.”

Where we go from here

On Nov. 1, the two defense attorneys assigned the suspect’s case and were involved in the filing of the key documents that led to the defense team entering the Fall City home on Oct. 29, filed notices of withdrawal from the case. They stated “Our client has retained other counsel,” according to court documents. Later that day, Kristen Gestaut entered a notice of appearance.

The two defense attorneys may be looking at sanctions and “potential legal implications,” people familiar with the proceedings said to Hickey. During an appearance on KIRO Newsradio’s “The John Curley Show” Friday, Hickey said he has talked to multiple members of the legal community and the only consensus is it is not known what will happen next.

Hickey told John Curley he talked to someone in the KCPAO and they were confused by the reports about what unfolded.

“This is so over the top. And so I contacted the King County prosecutor’s office. They were kind of dumbfounded too,” Hickey said Friday. “They knew about it. They weren’t surprised when I called, but they said we don’t really know what comes next.”

The defense attorneys could end up facing a career-altering penalty, according to conversations Hickey has had.

“This is a big deal. There could be sanctions,” Hickey said Friday. “There’s attorneys I’ve talked to said (they) could be disbarred for this.”

Hickey also stated this probably won’t derail the trial of the 15-year-old suspect.

“It doesn’t sound like it’s going to create a mistrial (or) anything like that,” Hickey said. “But this is a big deal for them and why they did it and where those Clorox wipes are is a big deal, Hickey said to KIRO Newsradio previously.

Contributing: James Lynch, KIRO Newsradio; Julia Dallas, MyNorthwest

Steve Coogan is the lead editor of MyNorthwest. You can read more of his stories here. Follow Steve on X, or email him here.