It will take at least another four to six weeks before the Portland man arrested Dec. 10 in connection with the killing of a Kent city employee is brought to Washington to face a murder charge.
William L. Phillip Jr., 30, refused to be extradited to Washington, during a Dec. 21 hearing in Portland, according to Ian Goodhew, deputy chief of staff for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Phillip was supposed to be arraigned Dec. 21 at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent on a first-degree murder charge in the stabbing death of Seth Frankel, 41.
Phillip’s arraignment has been postponed until further notice, Goodhew said. King County prosecutors will reschedule the arraignment once Phillip has gone through extradition proceedings.
Because Phillip declined to be extradited from Oregon, he remained in custody this week at the Multnomah County Jail in Portland, where he is being held on $1 million bail.
“Waiving extradition” means that a suspect agrees to go with authorities from another jurisdiction willingly, thus making an extradition hearing unnecessary. Because Phillip has fought extradition, the governors from each state must sign papers to allow the proceeding.
That process by the two governors could take at least four to six weeks, Goodhew said.
Auburn Police – with the help of the U.S. Marshals Service – arrested Phillip Dec. 10 in Portland in connection with Frankel’s death. Frankel, a video-program coordinator for the city of Kent, was killed May 21 in his Auburn home. He was discovered the following day by a neighbor who was checking on his welfare, and who looked through a window, spotting the body.
Prosecutors allege that Phillip, a former boyfriend of the woman Frankel dated, drove to Auburn to kill Frankel because he was angry someone else was dating the woman. Detectives connected Phillip to the murder through a blood-stained towel found at Frankel’s house as well as cell-phone records that put Phillips near the home May 21.
Frankel joined the city of Kent in 2007 after 11 years as a director of production at a PBS station in Eureka, Calif.
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