Man charged in 15-year-old Molly Conley's shooting death
Erick Nathaniel Walker being arrested in Marysville on June 28, 2013.
EVERETT -- A 27-year-old Marysville man was charged Thursday with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 15-year-old Molly Conley, who was killed while walking with friends along a road in Lake Stevens June 1.
The defendant, Erick Nathanial Walker, was also charged with four drive-by shooting counts for allegedly firing into houses and at parked vehicles in Lake Stevens and Marysville in the early morning hours of June 2.
The Snohomish County Prosecutor's Office asked that bail be set at $5 million for Walker. He is to be arraigned on the charges at 2 p.m. Friday in Snohomish County Superior Court.
According to the charging documents, Conley, a student at Seattle's Bishop Blanchet High School, and five other teenage girls who were longtime friends traveled from Seattle to Lake Stevens to celebrate Conley's 15th birthday.
They were staying with one of the girl's parents, who had moved to Lake Stevens.
"That night, the girls decided to walk down to the lake," the charging documents said. As they were walking down a narrow part of South Lake Stevens Road, almost in single file, "the girls heard a loud bang as a car passed; then MC (Molly Conley) dropped to her knees.
"It took the other girls a few moments to realize that MC had been shot ... MC fell a short distance down the embankment into the heavily wooded area. Good Samaritans got out of their cars to help the girls and carried MC back to the roadway in order to provide assistance.
"MC was still breathing with difficulty at that point, but she had lost a lot of blood ... MC died of a single gunshot wound to the neck. It was a through and through wound," with the bullet passing through her body and traveling in the wooded area.
The bullet was never recovered, the documents said.
After that shooting, other reports came in of drive-by shootings in the area. Bullets were fired at parked vehicles and into four houses -- three in Lake Stevens and one in Marysville. No one was injured in those shootings.
All bullets recovered from the houses and vehicles were .30 carbine. Police learned that Walker had purchased a Ruger Blackhawk revolver from Cabella's in Marysville earlier this year that uses .30 carbine ammunition.
Walker was arrested in the case on June 28.
Forensic scientists determined July 3 that the .30 carbine shots fired into the houses and vehicles on June 2 came from two Ruger Blackhawk revolvers recovered from the defendant's home during a search warrant.
Following his arrest, Walker "adamantly denied ever shooting a gun from his vehicle," the documents said.
Police said they believe the Conley shooting was random and that he did not know her.
He also denied being involved in a hit-and-run accident with a parked car at one of the houses where the drive-by shootings took place. But the charging documents said forensics indicated Walker's car had residue from the other vehicle.
According to Walker's Facebook page, he graduated from Stanwood High School and ITT Technical Institute in Everett after studying computer network systems, and he had worked at Boeing.