Community center shooter believed victims were part of ‘game of manipulation’

King County prosecutors filed charges Wednesday against the woman accused of shooting a co-worker in a parks department building on Friday, and charging documents reveal a motive for the first time.

Carolyn Piksa, 46, an assistant coordinator for community centers in Seattle, was charged with Assault in the First Degree and Assault in the Second Degree, for allegedly shooting 65-year-old Bill Keller and threatening another co-worker in the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department at the Bitter Lake Community Center.

Piksa was arrested at her Burien home Friday where she was tracked after the shooting.

Piksa told police after the arrest she believed Keller and Cynthia Etelamaki, the Bitter Lake Community Center coordinator, were involved in some sort of “game of manipulation” which Piksa could never win. Charging documents say Piksa believed Keller and Etalamaki were conspiring to have money taken from her bank account, delete contacts from her cell phone and making noises at night that kept her from sleeping. She said she wanted to “find out how to get out of the game.”

Piksa told detectives “I knew he wasn’t saying what should have been said” after confronting him in his offer and pointed her .357 revolver at Keller. Keller pleaded with her not to shoot him in the head, so Piksa shot him once in the chest instead.

Keller told police while he knew Piksa, they did not have much interaction and had never had any conflicts.

She told police after shooting him, she got her lunch from the office refrigerator and headed to the Bitter Lake community center.

Piksa reportedly confronted Etelamaki and asked if she had spoken with Keller. She threatened to shoot her longtime colleague and told police she would have shot her if she did not get the answers she demanded. Etelamaki was able to flee and call 911.

The search for Piksa after the shooting prompted a citywide response, as authorities believed her job granted her access to keys to all the cities community centers. All the city’s community centers were closed and several schools were placed on lockdown as a precaution.

Piksa has been a Parks and Recreation Department employee since 1986.

During questioning, she told police she decided to confront Keller and Etelamaki because she was finding it increasingly hard to do her job and believed it was time to “put my cards on the table,” and told detectives “and now I’m out of the game.”

Piksa remains in jail on $1 million bail. Keller remains hospitalized in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center.