Suspect in Molly Conley shooting identified
EVERETT -- The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office on Sunday identified the suspect in the Molly Conley drive-by shooting death as Erick N. Walker, 26, of Marysville.
Erick N. Walker being arrested at his Marysville home on Friday.
Conley, a student at Seattle's Bishop Blanchet High School, was shot in the neck and killed while she was walking along a road with friends in Lake Stevens on the night of June 1. She was celebrating her 15th birthday.
It was believed to be a random shooting from a passing car. No one else was injured.
On Friday, June 28, sheriff's deputies arrested Walker. He was booked into the Snohomish County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder and other charges, but he has not been formally charged with a crime. He is set to appear in court on Monday, but charges are not expected to be filed at that time.
The sheriff's office also plans to hold a news conference on the case at 11:30 a.m. Monday.
The Seattle Times, citing a "law enforcement source familiar with the investigation," said detectives believe Conley was a random victim of a shooting spree and that Walker did not know her.
There were at least two other drive-by shootings the night of June 1 that resulted only in property damage, and detectives suspect Walker was responsible for those, too, the Times said. But it is unclear what led detectives to Walker.
Walker also was booked on suspicion of five counts of second-degree assault with a weapon, because of other shots fired in the general vicinity of Conley’s friends, and four counts of drive-by shooting, some stemming from the other property-damage incidents, the Times said.
According to the newspaper, Walker’s only police record is a list of traffic violations, mostly speeding tickets.
The Times reported that Walker’s Facebook page featured a photo of rifles and handguns and that it said he graduated from Stanwood High School and ITT Technical Institute in Everett after studying computer network systems, and that he has worked at Boeing.