Six slain on West Side

CARNATION, Wash. – Six people, likely three generations of a family, were found dead Wednesday at a rural property east of Seattle, and a law enforcement official said police arrested the property owners’ daughter and her boyfriend.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the names, identified the pair as Michele Anderson, 29, and her boyfriend, Joseph McEnroe. Both were booked into the King County Jail late Wednesday for investigation of six counts of homicide.

The King County Sheriff’s Office had not officially released the names of the suspects or the victims, but the owners of the property are Wayne Anderson, 60, and Judy Anderson, 61, according to public records. Mark Bennett, a family friend, said the Andersons lived in a house there, and their daughter Michele lived on her parents’ property in a mobile home with a male companion.

Ben Anderson, who said he was the grandson of Wayne and Judy Anderson, said late Wednesday night outside the family’s property that his aunt had returned to the property Wednesday and admitted to the shootings.

“She felt she wasn’t loved enough and everyone didn’t appreciate here and she was pushed out of everyone’s life,” Ben Anderson told reporters.

Bennett said he spoke with Wayne and Judy Anderson on Christmas Eve and tried to call them Christmas Day but could not reach them. He told reporters he came to the property Wednesday morning after seeing the home on television news.

“I didn’t want to believe what I heard and saw,” he said, “so I drove over.”

King County sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart said the suspects came to the crime scene after investigators arrived, were questioned by investigators, then arrested around 4 p.m.

Urquhart said investigators had not determined a motive in the slayings and had not found a weapon.

Autopsies have not been performed, but the cause of death was apparently gunshots, Urquhart said. They were likely killed late afternoon or early evening on Christmas Eve, he said.

The couple has three children, including their daughter Michele, Bennett said. He said another daughter, Mary, and a son, Scott, live in the area.

A neighbor of Scott Anderson and his wife, Erica, said sheriff’s deputies talked to him Wednesday about the whereabouts of the couple and their two children, a 6-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy, the Seattle Times reported. Another neighbor said the couple left their home on Christmas Eve bound for Scott’s parents’ house in Carnation but haven’t returned.

Boeing spokesman Peter Conte said Wayne Anderson, 60, was a Boeing engineer. Conte said the company was contacted by authorities Wednesday and was told Anderson “was the victim of a crime.” Conte said he could not elaborate.

Judy Anderson, 61, worked for the U.S. Postal Service in Carnation.

A call to 911 was made from the house in the early evening on Christmas Eve, but the call broke off after about 10 seconds, Urquhart said. When deputies arrived at the scene, they stopped at a locked gate.

“They didn’t go past it,” Urquhart said. “I don’t know why yet. That’s one of the things we’re looking into.”

The bodies were found on a rural property that includes a house and a mobile home at the end of a long dirt road. The structures are part of a cluster of other rural properties near this town about 21 miles east of Seattle.

Urquhart declined to say where the victims were found on the property, other than they were “not found in the same room.”