MILL CREEK – Detectives are investigating apparent links between two deaths in Mill Creek early Monday.
A search warrant was obtained Monday morning for a Mill Creek apartment where a woman was found dead shortly after midnight following reports of a domestic dispute.
Meanwhile, there is evidence that the man who died in a car crash at about the same time is linked to the apartment complex. The man, 29, died when his speeding car struck a parked semi tractor trailer in the 18500 block of 35th Avenue SE, officials said.
“We are trying to make sure families get notified,” Mill Creek police officer Ian Durkee said late Monday morning.
Mill Creek police are investigating the apparent homicide in the apartment. Because the crash occurred outside of city limits, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office is handling the fatal crash.
“It seems the two will be linked,” Durkee said. “We will be working together to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.”
The woman, who is believed to have been in her 20s, was found dead in her apartment in the 14700 block of Main Street when police went to check on a reported domestic dispute, Durkee said.
Police were gathering evidence with the help of the Washington State Crime Lab. They did not release a suspected cause of death Monday morning.
Someone from the apartment complex called 911 around 12:20 a.m. to report hearing yelling and what sounded like items inside the apartment being thrown around, Durkee said.
If suspicions prove true, the woman’s death would be the first homicide in more than a quarter century since Mill Creek was incorporated into a city, Durkee said. (That’s not counting the January 2008 death of a man who was fatally shot in a confrontation with a Mill Creek police officer).
Monday’s crash happened about the same time Mill Creek police were arriving at the scene of the woman’s apparent homicide. The compact sedan was travelling southbound on 35th when it crossed the centerline and struck a parked semi tractor trailer, sheriff’s Lt. Rodney Rochon said.
The preliminary cause of the crash is speed on a wet roadway, he said. The collision is under investigation by the sheriff’s office Collision Investigation Unit.
Police were not involved in a pursuit when the crash occurred, officials said.
“He blew past a deputy who tried to follow him and lost him,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Shari Ireton said.
About a minute later, the deputy received word about the crash, she said.
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