‘Somebody knows who did this’: Kent mother still seeks answers in son’s murder 24 years later
May 21, 2026, 5:00 AM
Nearly a quarter-century after 25-year-old Ashley Mendiaz was shot to death inside his Tukwila home, his family is still waiting for the answers they’ve never been given: who killed him, and why?
Mendiaz was murdered on April 28, 2002. In the early morning hours, around 2:30 a.m., he managed to call 911 himself and tell police he’d been shot. Officers arrived to find the young man gravely wounded, according to Crimestoppers of Puget Sound Executive Director Jim Fuda.
“Ashley Michael Mendiaz calls the police at 2:30 in the morning, says he’s been shot. Police show up, and before he expires, he tells the police that there was more than one assailant, and they ruled it a home invasion robbery. And that’s all I know. Here we are, 24 years later,” Fuda said.
What first appeared to be a home invasion was later believed to be connected to marijuana.
“They thought it was a home invasion, and eventually learned that it was pot-related,” Mendiaz’s mom, Althea Clark, said. “That they felt that he knew where someone had pot planted, and he had taken some of them, and they came to get it, so they believe it was someone he knew. There were four or five people there in his place … they went in the house, they beat him up, they shot him in the leg, and then they shot him in his stomach, and he bled to death.”
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For Clark, the loss has been almost impossible to bear. Mendiaz was more than just her firstborn — he was her companion through early adulthood.
“We grew up together because I was 19 when I had him,” she said.
Mendiaz was a son, a brother, an uncle, and a friend to many. He was also a military veteran who served during the Gulf War. Having survived deployment overseas, he was killed less than a year after returning home.
“It’s very ironic. You go into service, you know you’re risking the possibility of not surviving that, and then to come home and be killed here was cruel,” Clark said.
Over the years, tips have come in, but none have yet led to an arrest.
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“We’re hoping that something like this will refresh somebody’s memory,” Fuda said. “There’s a $1,000 reward for Crimestoppers on this for an arrest and a charge of the people responsible, so someone in the neighborhood might remember something that they could pass on to us that we could give to Tukwila PD, and like I always say, somebody knows who did this, the crooks told somebody, somebody knows something. So let’s get these people into custody.”
Despite the brutality of the crime, Clark said she does not seek vengeance.
“I’ve always felt like he would have forgiven them if he had lived. He would have forgiven them, and therefore I forgive them, but I would like to know why,” she said.
Authorities and Mendiaz’s family hope renewed attention to the case will finally move someone to come forward.
If you have any information that could help solve the murder of Mendiaz, you are urged to call Crimestoppers of Puget Sound at 800-222-TIPS (800-222-8477). You may remain anonymous.
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