Police Arrest Second Teen In Slayings First Suspect In Bellevue Deaths Tells Police He Planned A Killing Because He Was ‘In A Rut’

Hours after a 17-year-old was charged Tuesday with four counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the slayings of a Bellevue family, police arrested a second youth.

The police chief said he believed the primary participants were now in jail.

Alex Baranyi, the young man charged Tuesday, told police he’d been planning a killing because he was “in a rut,” court papers said. No motive was immediately offered for the second youth, who was not identified.

“The evidence suggests that the murders were committed for the sheer experience of killing,” Prosecutor Norm Maleng said in announcing the charges against Baranyi.

The second youth, also 17, was arrested about 4:30 p.m. in the parking lot of City Hall. He was being booked into the King County Youth Center for investigation of murder, police Lt. Bill Ferguson said.

“At this time, we think we have the two primary participants who committed these crimes, and with these two persons in custody, our community, especially the Woodridge area, will sleep better tonight,” said interim Police Chief Garney Arcand.

Detectives interviewed the second youth last week. Discrepancies in his story and physical evidence at the crime scene led to his arrest, Ferguson said.

“When we arrested him today he invoked his rights. Any further contact we have will come through his attorney,” Ferguson said.

The Bellevue youth is a friend of Baranyi.

“It appears we have the two people who committed these murders,” Ferguson said. But he added that the investigation continues.

In court documents filed Tuesday, Baranyi is said to have confessed to the slayings. He told investigators he’d been planning a killing because he was “in a rut” and felt he had become “decadent,” documents say.

Baranyi, a high school dropout, is accused of killing Rose and William Wilson and their daughters: Kimberly, 20, and Julia, 17. Both Baranyi and the second youth knew Kimberly Wilson, Ferguson said.

Kimberly Wilson’s body was discovered in a Bellevue park Jan. 5. The bodies of the other victims were found later in their home in the city’s Woodridge neighborhood.

Maleng said Baranyi would be arraigned Friday as an adult. If convicted, he faces life in prison without possibility of parole; a state Supreme Court ruling prohibits the death penalty in cases in which the alleged offender is younger than 18.

Maleng said prosecutors would ask that Baranyi’s bail be set at $10 million.