Man charged with killing neighbor in Seattle’s first homicide of 2023
SEATTLE – A Seattle woman suffered an “extreme amount” of physical trauma when her neighbor beat and stabbed her to death Monday in South Lake Union, according to King County prosecutors, who have charged the 46-year-old neighbor with first-degree premeditated murder.
Allister Baldwin, who lived down the hall from Ivette “Ivy” Wallin, 51, is accused of killing her inside his studio apartment in Seattle’s first homicide of 2023, charging papers say. He was arrested at the scene and remains jailed in lieu of $5 million bail, court records show.
Baldwin and Wallin were both residents of Canaday House, an 83-unit apartment building operated by the Downtown Emergency Service Center on Minor Avenue North to provide permanent supportive housing to people who previously experienced homelessness, according to the charges and the social-service agency’s website.
Another resident called 911 Monday evening and told an operator that the occupant of a sixth-floor apartment admitted to killing a woman and had invited him inside to confirm she was dead, according to charges.
The man who called 911 met Seattle police officers in the building’s lobby and told them, “I saw the body, I saw the body,” the charges say.
Police found the apartment’s door ajar and could hear loud music coming from inside. Officers banged on the door and announced they were coming in to perform a welfare check, charging papers say.
Inside, they contacted Baldwin and found Wallin dead on a mattress, the charges say. A folding knife and a pipe used to smoke narcotics were found near her body.
Baldwin was arrested and taken to Seattle police headquarters, where a detective photographed what appeared to be scratch marks on his body and blood beneath his fingernails, according to the charges.
Other residents of Canaday House later told investigators they heard an argument coming from Baldwin’s apartment an hour or two before police were called, the charges say.
One man said he heard a woman tell Baldwin that he was making her nervous and she wanted to leave, according to the charges. The man knocked on the door and told Baldwin to let her go, to which Baldwin reportedly replied, “If I open this door, it will be all bad,” charging papers say.
Asked about Wallin and Baldwin’s relationship to one another, the man told police, “she was dating him kinda, but not exclusive,” the charges say.
An autopsy determined Wallin suffered blunt force injuries to her face, arms, hands and legs, several broken ribs and at least six stab wounds, including wounds to her carotid artery and jugular vein, according to the charges.
Baldwin was convicted in 2006 of sexually assaulting a child in Texas and sentenced to 14 years in prison, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Brent Kling wrote in charging papers.
Charging papers in the murder case didn’t say when Baldwin moved to Seattle, but he’s listed on the King County Sheriff’s Office public database of registered sex offenders.
Level 1 sex offenders such as Baldwin are considered at low risk to re-offend and do not usually appear in the sheriff’s database. Baldwin appears to have been included because his address had not been verified, which caused him to fall out of compliance with registration requirements, according to the database.
He’s scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 19 on the murder charge.