South Hill double homicide stemmed from love triangle, according to court docs

A Spokane woman remembered arguing over the phone last month with an intoxicated Terrance Wallette, who claimed he was driving to her South Hill home to beat up her husband.

Years ago, Wallette was sent to prison for locking the woman, a runaway teen girl at the time, in his bedroom. Since then, Wallette, 37, and woman, 32, reconciled. They had a child together and carried on a romantic relationship even though she was married, police cited in court documents.

According to an investigative report filed by police with the courts, and obtained Wednesday by The Spokesman-Review: During her phone argument with Wallette, her former captor became loud at one point and told her he was outside her residence at 4202 E. 34th Ave.

“Let’s go; let’s get out of here,” she recalled hearing another man in the car telling Wallette.

She heard Wallette get louder. And then she heard her husband in the background yell “Get off my property!”

The shouting between Wallette and Shelby Martin, her 38-year-old husband, continued until the phone disconnected, she told police.

She then left work and began driving home when multiple police vehicles passed her. She realized the police were headed to her house.

The triangle between Wallette, the woman and her husband ended with what police described as a shootout in the driveway of the woman’s house. Wallette was shot and killed and a man in his passenger seat, 20-year-old Emilio Vazquez, is dead, too. Shelby Martin suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was hospitalized.

Wallette was found on the ground of the driveway just outside the driver’s seat of the woman’s black 2017 Dodge Journey, the car Wallette was driving that night.

Vazquez died in the front passenger seat. The SUV was still running and in park, police said.

The woman’s mother told police four children were inside the home at the time of the shooting. One of them, a 16-year-old, captured the shooting on a phone video and showed it to police.

Police wrote a man could be heard yelling, “I don’t care” and “shoot him” in the footage. The teen identified the voice as Wallette.

The woman’s husband can be seen standing at the driver’s door with the door open. Wallette and Vazquez are sitting in the front seats. Multiple shots are fired, and the cell phone camera shakes away for a moment. As the camera refocuses on the men, it appears Wallette is incapacitated, according to police descriptions of the footage.

The woman’s husband can then be seen talking with Vazquez, who appears to be yelling back at him. The footage shows what looks like Vazquez pointing a firearm and firing at Shelby Martin. Shelby Martin then points a firearm back at Vazquez and fires multiple times before the video ends.

Police noted a black handgun on the floorboard of the driver’s seat of the Dodge and multiple bullet fragments on the passenger’s and driver’s side of the vehicle. Two handguns were in the driveway in front of the vehicle.

Detectives collected multiple spent casings, ammunition, the firearm, a cell phone and “firearm accessories” from the Dodge.

Police also noticed a bullet hole on the siding of a home next door to where the shooting occurred.

The history between Wallette and the woman dates back 16 years when he locked the runaway teen in his bedroom and monitored her with a camera, according to court documents.

Court files show Wallette spent two years in prison when he was 21 for unlawfully imprisoning the girl and possessing sexually explicit photos of a minor.

The woman had disappeared in July 2009, and police designated her as a runaway. She was located two months later, scared that Wallette would hurt her family.

While Wallette held her captive, he would grab her by the hair, pull her to the floor and stomp on her with his foot, according to court documents.

The woman told police she had a child, now 14, with Wallette. The child was one of the four present for the shooting, according to the filings obtained Wednesday.

After he was released from prison, Wallette committed new crimes and served more prison time for assaulting girlfriends. He held a knife to one of his girlfriend’s throat and threatened to kill her in 2013.

Court records also show Wallette assaulted another girlfriend in front of her 9-year-old daughter. When police arrived on scene, Wallette brandished a knife .

In 2017, he was shot by police multiple times in the chest near Gonzaga Prep after escaping from Providence Holy Family Hospital. He had stabbed himself repeatedly and ran at officers with a knife.

Wallette was charged with six counts of assault but acquitted by reason of insanity and committed to Eastern State Hospital in 2018. Experts found he had episodes of hallucinations and paranoia.

Wallette was discharged last year, lived in a community residence and met regularly with a transition team of corrections officers, social workers and counselors to evaluate his mental health.

The woman told police she believed Wallette was doing better in life. She had been calling and texting with him the past three years, keeping him updated on their son.

Her mother informed police that she had problems with Wallette showing up at her house and damaging her property in the past.

The woman told police she started having a romantic relationship with him about two years ago and her husband found out. She said she stopped talking to Wallette, but started talks with him again, which eventually led to another romantic relationship.

A couple weeks before the shooting, she was in her car with Wallette and heading to work, police reported to the court. When she got there, Shelby Martin was waiting for her. She said her husband was upset over her relationship with Wallette.

She told police their marriage was heading toward separation.

She stayed the week with Wallette and helped her husband with the children when she came home during the day, she told police. She said her husband let her do what she needed to do, and that he was aware of her relationship with Wallette.

On the night of the shooting, Wallette drove the woman to work in her Dodge Journey at 6 p.m., she told police. While at work, she spoke with Wallette on the phone and heard him slurring his words, so she believed he was intoxicated.

She said she told Wallette to return her car because she did not want him driving drunk. She told police Wallette started to argue and refused to return her car.

She left work with a coworker and went to a bar where she believed Wallette was, according to documents. While speaking with him on the phone, Wallette made claims, which she did not believe, that he was going to go to her house and confront Shelby Martin. He told her he was going to “beat Shelby’s ass,” she told police.

Gunshots were reported to police at about 8:45 p.m..