SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane man is behind bars after admitting to killing his daughter’s boyfriend last year. He claims the 19-year-old victim sold his daughter into a sex-trafficking organization.
Police arrested the suspect last week after they found a body in the trunk of his abandoned vehicle.
We are not naming the suspect or his daughter to protect the minor involved in the case. The Spokane Police Department (SPD) said this is an ongoing investigation and it does not have all the information to confirm the suspect’s statements. In the meantime, the department said people should not take the law into their own hands.
About two weeks ago, Spokane police found a body in an abandoned car in Hillyard. They traced that car back to a 60-year-old Spokane man. He told police he killed the 19-year-old victim last year after learning he sold his daughter into a sex-trafficking organization in the Seattle area.
Right now, investigators only have the suspect’s statement to go off of, which is information that still needs to be confirmed.
In fact, both the FBI and WSP told us there is no sex trafficking investigation into this particular suspect.
“We have nothing to corroborate that the traffic component is, in fact, verified or correct,” SPD Cpl. Nick Briggs said. “We're looking into that. But right now, all the information we have is coming from what the suspect has told us.”
According to the suspect, he rescued his daughter in October last year.
When he learned the victim was going to be in Airway Heights, he planned to confront him. The suspect admitted to abducting the victim, hitting him with a cinder block and stabbing him repeatedly.
SPD does not condone vigilante style crimes. Corporal Nick Briggs said that’s because for the community to work, there needs to be a common thread.
He suggests that thread is the law. He insists the law applies to everyone and allows the community to thrive.
“When you lose that, when people start taking things into their own hands, there's no equity,” Briggs said. “There's no justice and quite frankly, there's no safety. So we cannot, regardless of the circumstances, we have to have the system work. That's what the principles of our community in our country are founded on.”
He adds that vigilante style crimes are rare in our area. But he implores people to not rush to judgment since there is still several unconfirmed details in this case.
The suspect is charged with murder and remains in Spokane County Jail on a $1 million bond.
On Wednesday afternoon, the suspect's fiancé told KREM 2’s Amanda Roley she hasn't been able to speak with him yet. But her family is currently raising funds to hire an attorney.