Murder charges filed against man suspected of killing grandparents
Mar 21, 2013, 1:58 PM | Updated: 4:10 pm
Murder charges have been filed against the man accused of killing his elderly grandparents hours after his release from a Washington state prison.
Michael “Chadd” Boysen, 26, was booked into the King County Jail and charged with two counts of first-degree murder after being extradited from Oregon Thursday.
“It was routine transfer, other than the fact that it was very high profile,” said Chad Lewis, a spokesperson with the Washington State Department of Corrections.
Corrections officers escorted Boysen from a Portland-area hospital, where he was being treated for self-inflicted wounds, to the King County Jail. He was booked into the facility at roughly 12:45 p.m.
Boysen is accused of killing his grandparents, 80-year-old Norma J. Taylor and 82-year-old Robert R. Taylor, at their Renton-area home on March 9.
According to charging documents released Thursday afternoon, Boysen strangled his grandparents with a shoe string and put their bodies in the closet of a spare bedroom.
“[Deputies] found the two victims piled into a bedroom closet; the female victim, Norma, was lying on top of the male victim, Robert,” according to the documents.
Both were partially dressed in their pajamas.
“They both had severely dark/bruised ligature marks around their necks. A bloody shoe lace remained partially wrapped around Norma’s neck,” the documents read.
According to the documents, Boysen stole thousands of dollars in cash, credit cards and jewelry from the home before he fled. Several items, including Robert Taylor’s wedding band, were later pawned at AC Coins in Kent.
Detectives believe Boysen checked into the Extended Stay America hotel in Tukwila on March 10, but left before deputies were tipped off to his location on March 11.
On the morning of March 12, a clerk at the Westshore Oceanfront Suites in Lincoln City, Ore., called 911 to report that a man using the name “Michael Chadd Boysen,” checked in the night before.
After a 10-hour standoff, Boysen was taken into custody and hospitalized for several self-inflicted cuts.
According to the documents, detectives located a Winchester 67 .22 bolt-action rifle in the trunk of Boysen’s car. It is not clear where he got the firearm, but officials say he had been searching the internet for gun shows.
The King County Sheriff’s Office said after the murders that Boysen had made threats to kill law enforcement officers and warned the public that he may be armed.
