Motive behind slayings remains a mystery

Sheriff’s officers said Wednesday that their investigation of last week’s killing of a Mount Spokane couple so far has failed to provide a clear picture.

One reason is that the suspect, the couple’s 18-year-old son, has invoked his right to remain silent, Detective Sgt. Jim Goodwin said in a press conference.

Mount Spokane High School senior Bryan P. Kim was charged Monday with two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of his parents, Richard and Terri Kim. Their bodies were found in a shed next to the family’s home in the 18400 block of East Eagle Ridge Lane, near Mount Spokane.

Richard Kim, a respiratory therapist, died of multiple stab wounds and Terri Kim, a Rogers High math teacher, had been strangled. Terri Kim also “had some head trauma,” Goodwin said Wednesday.

He said investigators haven’t determined which victim died first and declined to discuss his “working hypothesis” about what happened.

Bryan Kim’s sister, Jessica Kim, who no longer lived in the family home, told deputies her brother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. A prescription medicine used to treat the disorder was found in Bryan Kim’s car.

But Goodwin said detectives haven’t documented Kim’s medical history or determined whether he had been taking his medicine.

Kim’s criminal history shows several arrests – although no convictions – for attacks on his parents or sheriff’s deputies who intervened.

Court documents say Kim told his girlfriend on Wednesday last week that he and his parents had argued the night before over his Internet use and that they went for a walk and failed to return.

“Whether that is part of the reason for what happened, I don’t know,” Goodwin said of the reported argument.

Court documents say Kim’s girlfriend told officers he was angry with his parents because they had ordered him to move out of their home at the end of the year.

Sometimes it isn’t possible to know exactly what motivated a crime, Goodwin said, but Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich suggested that violent video games and other cultural factors may have contributed.

“We live in an age in which we have desensitized our youth to violence,” Knezovich said. “It’s one of the things that we need to work at as a society.”

Search warrant documents show that a book about the Dungeons & Dragons video game was found in Bryan Kim’s car – along with some knives.

Investigators from the Sheriff’s Office and Washington State Patrol found five knives in Bryan Kim’s downstairs bedroom, one at the kitchen sink and some more from an upstairs gun safe that Kim allegedly forced open.

A number of tools, including a drill and broken bits, were found next to the safe.

Goodwin said detectives are “hopeful” they have the knife used to kill Richard Kim, but “we don’t have one that sticks out like a sore thumb.” Laboratory tests will be needed to determine whether there are traces of blood on any of the knives.

Contrary to a persistent rumor, Goodwin said, no weapon was found in a trash can at Mount Spokane High School, where a school resource deputy took Bryan Kim into custody. Nor was any evidence found in Kim’s school locker.

Officers found a Ruger .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol in a nightstand in Kim’s bedroom, which they believe he took from his father’s gun safe. But Goodwin said detectives have no evidence that Kim planned to hurt anyone else at school or elsewhere.

Nor do they have evidence that he planned to kill his parents. Knezovich said he will seek first-degree murder charges if evidence of premeditation is found.

Goodwin said he didn’t know why Kim would work so hard to break into the gun safe and take only a .22-caliber pistol while leaving behind a number of other handguns and other firearms.

The .22 wasn’t loaded, but there were two loaded magazines next to it.

“It’s not clear to us,” Goodwin said. “It is curious.”