An 18-year-old Puyallup man faces a first-degree murder charge for allegedly shooting a 30-year-old Bothell man June 15 behind the Kent YMCA during a struggle to steal the Bothell man’s gun.
Elijan A. Cain also has been charged with theft of a firearm for reportedly taking a gun belonging to Miles R. Clark, the man fatally shot. Clark died from a gunshot wound of head, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Cain is scheduled to be arraigned at 9 a.m. Thursday, July 27 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Cains remains in custody at the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle with bail set at $2 million, according to jail records.
According to charging papers filed July 14 by King County prosecutors, Cain reportedly was armed with a handgun at about 6:37 p.m. June 15 when he ran up to Clark, who was seated at a bench at Morrill Meadows Park. Cain tried to grab Clark’s handgun from the holster on his hip. When Clark resisted, Cain allegedly shot him in the head.
Cain then retrieved Clark’s handgun and fled the area. Neither Clark’s gun nor the gun reportedly used by Cain to shoot him, have been recovered.
Kent Police detectives reviewed surveillance video that showed Clark park his vehicle in the YMCA parking lot, 10828 SE 248th St. Clark, a tech support specialist for a large Seattle software company, according to court documents, walked to a picnic table and began working on his company laptop.
At that time, YMCA video showed the park filled with people walking the park and kids playing near the outdoor basketball court.
A witness told detectives that Clark was at the table and took off his jacket, which revealed a holstered pistol on his hip. A fitness instructor moved his outdoor class closer to the YMCA building after seeing the gun.
Detectives also used video surveillance from the YMCA and multiple nearby homes to see a man, later identified as Cain, walk through the parking lot and into the park and past Clark, still seated at the table. Cain walked over to another man who stood up to greet him.
Cain and that man walked into a nearby neighborhood before Cain returned to the park by himself about six minutes later, according to charging papers.
Cain then sprinted to the bench where Clark was seated, lifted him off the bench and threw him to the ground, according to court documents. Clark fell onto his right hip and elbow. He was partially facing the ground as Cain stood behind and over Clark’s head.
A Ring camera from a house near the park reportedly captured the sound of two gunshots. Video showed Clark then falling to the ground and his body doing limp. A witness told detectives Clark and Cain appeared to struggle over Cain’s pistol before seeing Cain reportedly shoot Clark in the back of the head before running away.
Paramedics transported Clark to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, but he died the next day.
Detectives tracked down the man seen leaving the park with Cain and used phone records of the man to get a phone number for Cain, according to charging papers. Detectives tracked Cain to a home in Puyallup and later to an apartment in Kent near Morrill Meadows Park and the YMCA.
Those records indicated that Cain was reportedly in the area at the time of the shooting. Phone records showed Cain stayed in the apartment complex routinely since June 1.
Detectives obtained search warrants for the apartment and the Puyallup address. They found distinctive shoes worn by Cain and other clothing seen in videos of the shooting, according to court documents. Kent Police arrested Cain, with the help of Valley SWAT, on July 11 during the search warrant.
Cain told detectives he received a call June 15 from a friend about a man in the park with a gun on his hip. Cain said he went to his friend’s house where he retrieved a gun. He returned to the park and asked Clark if he was selling the gun holstered on his hip, according to charging papers.
Cain and Clark then began to wrestle over Cain’s gun before he shot Clark. Cain went to the nearby apartment where he was staying and said an unknown teen arrived a short while later to take the guns, which Cain said he gave to him.
According to court documents, Cain told detectives that his intention had been to grab Clark’s gun off his hip and run away with it. He was going to try to sell it online to make a little money.
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