King County prosecutors charged a 15-year-old Burien girl April 15 with second-degree murder in connection with the April 5 stabbing death of a 49-year-old Kent man at his Panther Lake-area home.
Prosecutors charged the girl in King County Juvenile Court in Seattle. A decline hearing, which under Washington law determines whether someone is prosecuted as an adult or juvenile, is slated for May 2 in Juvenile Court.
Prosecutors continue to review the case and have yet to decide whether to try to prosecute the girl as an adult, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, on Thursday.
The girl, who attended Tyee High School in SeaTac, remains in custody in the Juvenile Detention Center at the King County Youth Services Center in Seattle.
As outlined in the charging papers, King County Sheriff’s Office deputies found the body of Francisco Noe Pena on April 8 in the garage of his home in the 11800 block of Southeast 203rd Street, in unincorporated Kent, just east of the city limits.
A co-worker had contacted deputies when Pena didn’t show up for work. Pena lived alone.
Deputies found a knife near the body. Pena had been stabbed once in the chest. A fingerprint on the knife led detectives to the girl, who reportedly has had numerous contacts with police, including an arrest for prostitution.
Sheriff’s detectives learned from a friend of Pena that the man recently started to hire prostitutes after his divorce, according to the charging papers.
On April 4, Pena reportedly arranged a date with the Burien girl. He bought vodka and whisky at a Kent liquor store and then met the girl at a grocery store near her home and brought her back to his house.
At about 12:30 a.m. April 5, a neighbor near Pena called 911 to report a drunk teenage girl pounding at their door and breaking a window. Police found the girl bleeding from the wrist. She was transported to a hospital and released the next day to her mother.
Three days later, deputies found Pena dead at his home. Pena’s wallet and a laptop computer were missing from the home.
Detectives arrested the girl April 10. She told detectives three different versions of what happened the night of April 4.
She eventually said she had met Pena for a date and that she also had taken his wallet and computer.
The girl also told police that she had a confrontation with Pena in the garage because he would not let her leave without having sex.
She said she grabbed a knife from some shelves in the garage and “might have stuck him,” according to the charging papers.
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