The Taylor Westphal Standoff (8th grade)
From The Extended Group
Contents |
Overview
The 2nd Taylor Westphal Incident took place on May 28, 1999 when Lonnie Davis, a 22-year-old man from Brier killed three people before taking up sanctuary in the Westphal household, where he held off the police for many hours before a sniper's bullet ended his life in the bedroom of Garrett Westphal.
Murder in Brier and an Accident on I-5
The incident actually began that morning, where Mr. Davis murdered his mother and 15-month-old newphew, before fleeing in his mother's car before the bodies were discovered. He drove to I-5, where he then crashed into a motorcycle near the pedestrian bridge at 195th Ave NE (the injuries to the motorcyclist being so severe that his leg was later amputated). Once he had freed himself from the wreckage, he then proceeded to scale a nearby fence over the sound wall that bordered the freeway.
Murder in Shoreline
Once over the fence, he then attacked and murdered Erma Spence with a post-hole digger. Davis then entered the house of John Berger on 195th, where they exchanged words and Davis fleed when Berger and his roommate threatened to get their guns. Increasingly agitated, Davis made his way down 7th Ave NE through backyards. In one instance, he ran into a wire fence bordering the home of Griffin Pulliam, who would later become a loosely-affiliated cohort of the Extended Group. Unable the jump the fence at one section, Davis left an imposing body imprint on it, and moved down to an area where he could use another fence to facilitate his attempt to make it over the fence. Davis continued his attempted escape, and came upon Irene Hilton, an 82-year-old woman, who he then attacked and viciously injured. By this point, the Shoreline police were arriving in the area, and Davis realized that he had run down a dead end. Cornered, Davis fled into the first unlocked house he found, that belonging to the Westphal Family.
The Westphal House and A Stalemate
The Westphal house was much like one would expect the Westphal house to be. Laundry was literally strewn everywhere and the house had a minor odor of dog feces that one or more of the Westphal boys (Austin, Taylor and Garrett) had neglected to pick up. In this hellhole, Davis found his first stroke of good luck. The Westphals subscribed to a very progressive manner of gun safety. Whereas many people use safes to hold their guns and keep the ammunition separate, the Westphals felt that the best way to secure their guns was to leave them on the floor of the master bedroom and cover them with laundry. Davis came upon the guns and used them to hold off the police, who at that point had surrounded him.
Meanwhile, at Einstein
While Davis held off the police, school ended at Einstein Middle School. Due to the dangerous situation taking place on 7th Ave, buses were held from entering the area until safety could be assured. The bus riders were beckoned in to the SAC, where Mr. Bill Young informed them that their bus was not going to leave because there was "something happening" in the area. Unfortunately, Mr. Young did not inform the riders that it was a police standoff and that guns were being fired, and half of the riders decided that rather than wait, they would walk home. Eventually, the entire story was presented, and many kids decided that walking into a warzone would probably not be the best idea.
The Standoff Ends
Davis proceeded to hold off the police from flushing him out of the Westphal home, injuring one officer in the process. Davis made his last fatal mistake at 5:30pm when he was shot in the head by a sniper in the cramped messy bedroom of Garrett Westphal. However, the police were unable to confirm the kill, and did not officially declare the incident over until much later, after teargassing the house repeatedly, and sending in a robot which eventually found Davis's lifeless body.
Aftermath
Things took a definite turn for the worse for the Westphals following the incident. Less than a week after the incident, they were forced to leave the house by the owner and took up new residence in Mountlake Terrace. Fred Westphal (the father of the family) died of complications from diabetes in 2003. Austin Westphal has worked a variety of low-income jobs in the area (such as the Mountlake 9 and Domino's Pizza on 15th Ave NE) and can occasionally be seen riding his bike in the vicinity of the Shoreline Stadium. Taylor Westphal eventually had a major growth spurt and is now a towering 6'2". He was last seen working at the Big 5 in Aurora Village. Garrett Westphal is approaching his senior year of high school and is presumed to be extremely weird.
Tidbits
- The Pulliam front yard was used as the staging area for the SWAT team.
- It's really surreal to see your house on the news when the station's chopping is circling the airspace around your neighborhood.
- John Pulliam took part in a media frenzy held in the parking lot of the Shoreline Center, where he was interviewed by King 5's own "Parka Boy" Jim Foreman. While his impressions of the man have been lost to history, it can be recalled that he was underwhelming by the reporter, who apparently is as tall as most 1st graders.
- A week later, KOMO News did a follow-up story on how the neighborhood was coping with the shock of the events that had occurred. The piece itself was pure fluff, but it did contain footage of Preston Pulliam dribbling a basketball off his foot.
External Links
Police sniper ends terror Seattle PI, May 29th, 1999
Resident in 1999 Shoreline standoff dies at 45 Shoreline Enterprise, Jan 31, 2003
