SEATTLE —
Authorities are searching the Northwest for a man accused of killing his Seattle-area grandparents, who had just picked him up after his release from a Washington state prison, hosted a party in his honor and offered him a room in their home for the night.
Michael “Chad” Boysen, 26, is considered extremely dangerous and has tried to obtain guns, police said Monday.
He was released from prison Friday after serving several years for robbery. His grandparents — an 82-year-old man and 80-year-old woman — picked him up from prison and hosted a family “welcome home party” for him that night, King County Sheriff John Urquhart said.
The grandparents killed later Friday or early Saturday at their Renton home. Authorities believe Boysen also stole their car.
“I can’t stress how dangerous this guy is,” Urquhart said Monday at a news conference. The sheriff said Boysen had made threats against family members and law enforcement officials, but he did not elaborate.
“We have to catch him as soon as we can,” Urquhart said.
The sheriff said the grandparents were not shot, but he declined to provide other details about their killings, pending autopsies.
Detectives believe Boysen is trying to find weapons, and Urquhart said authorities do not believe he had a gun when he left the crime scene. Boysen had been searching the Internet for “gun shows” across the Northwest and Nevada, the sheriff’s office said.
Boysen had been in prison since 2006 on three robbery convictions in King County, said Judy Feliciano with Corrections Department. He was released Friday from the prison at Monroe, about 35 miles north of Renton, and was supposed to check in with a community supervision officer within 24 hours, she said.
Boysen’s grandparents had fixed up a room in their home for him to sleep in his first night out of prison, sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Cindi West said. Boysen was planning to stay elsewhere after that.
“We are at a loss as to why he killed them,” Urquhart said. “We don’t know what the motive is.”
Boysen is 5-foot-10, weighs 170 pounds and has hazel eyes. He may be driving his grandparents’ red, 2001 Chrysler 300, with Washington license plate 046XXU.
A warrant has been issued for Boysen’s arrest. If he’s stopped anywhere in the country, law enforcement officers will know he’s a wanted man, state Corrections Department spokesman Chad Lewis said.
Autopsies on the victims were scheduled for Monday and their names will be released later, the King County medical examiner’s office said.
Friends and family identified the elderly couple to TV stations as Robert R. and Norma J. Taylor. They were members of the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, neighbor Ronna Smith told KOMO.
When a family member became concerned that the Taylors didn’t answer their door, the daughter was called and found their bodies at about 7 p.m. Saturday, KING reported.
“It’s really scary that it happened two doors down,” Smith told KIRO-TV. “We were home Friday evening, and we left the house at about 2 in the afternoon on Saturday. And when we came home, at about 8 o’clock, it was full of police cars.”
National, International News
Related Photos
-
The house where the bodies of an elderly couple were found Saturday, March 9, 2013, is shown Monday, March 11, 2013, in Renton, Wash. Washington state authorities are looking for Michael "Chad" Boysen, accused of killing the couple, who are his grandparents, in Renton, Wash., just hours after he was released from prison. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) The Associated Press
Discussion
Man sought in grandparents’ deaths in Wash. state
- National, International News
-
-
G8 exposes rift among leaders on Syria
Deep differences over Syria’s fierce civil war clouded a summit of world leaders Monday, with Russian President Vladimir Putin defiantly rejecting calls from the U.S., Britain and France to halt his political and military support for Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s regime.
-
Unions give lift to Turkish protest movement
Turkish labor groups fanned a wave of defiance against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authority, leading rallies and a one-day strike to support activists whose two-week standoff with the government has shaken the country’s secular democracy.
-
For young immigrants, a delayed coming of age
As a child, Jorge Tume used to sit and do homework as his parents cleaned the desks and floors of a concrete company in Miami. When he was done, he’d take out the trash and help finish cleaning.
-
Investigators ‘zeroing in’ on Colo. wildfire start
Sheriff’s officials say they have now recorded more than 500 homes leveled by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history.
-
Still no Hoffa after 1st day of latest search
Federal agents revived the hunt for the remains of Jimmy Hoffa on Monday, digging around in a suburban Detroit field where a reputed Mafia captain says the Teamsters boss’ body was buried.
-
Today in History for Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Today is Tuesday, June 18, the 169th day of 2013. There are 196 days left in the year.
-
Series of attacks kill 51 people across Iraq
A blistering string of apparently coordinated bombings and a shooting across Iraq killed at least 51 and wounded dozens Sunday, spreading fear throughout the county in a wave of violence that is raising the prospect of a return to widespread sectarian killing a decade after a U.S.-led invasion.
-
Turkey unrest goes on despite end to park protest
Riot police cordoned off streets, set up roadblocks and fired tear gas and water cannon to prevent anti-government protesters from converging on Istanbul’s central Taksim Square on Sunday, unbowed even as Turkey’s prime minister addressed hundreds of thousands of supporters a few kilometers away.
-
Iraq no-fly zone viewed as symbol for one in Syria
The Obama administration, trying to avoid getting drawn deeper into Syria’s civil war, has pointed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a symbol of what can go wrong when America’s military wades into Middle East conflicts.
-
Steady rain falls as crews work against Colo. fire
With evacuees anxious to return, firefighters worked Sunday to dig up and extinguish hot spots to protect homes spared by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado’s history.
- More National, International News Headlines
-
