EVERETT — Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe won’t seek the death penalty for a man accused of killing two people outside an Everett house earlier this year.
Roe met with the victims’ families. He also discussed the case with Everett police detectives, senior deputy prosecutors and the defendant’s attorney, Karen Halverson.
Roe said there are numerous reasons for his decision. He declined to provide any additional details, saying the case is ongoing and it’s not appropriate for him to discuss Tye Patrick Fleischer or the charges against him except in court hearings or in court documents.
Roe, however, said Halverson provided him information to persuade him not to seek the death penalty, including details about Fleischer’s life, upbringing and education. She noted that her client didn’t have any prior violent felony history, Roe wrote in a press release Monday.
Fleischer, 37, is charged with two counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. Prosecutors allege that he opened fire Feb. 13 and shot three people in the driveway of a house in the 2400 block of 75th Street SE.
The house has been the site of two other deadly shootings since 2008.
Kevin Odneal, who lived in the home with his mother, and Irene Halverson were killed. A second woman was shot in the pelvis and survived the gunfire.
Prosecutors allege Fleischer confessed when he called 911 and reported the shootings.
Detectives believe Fleischer, a convicted felon, was good friends with the 34-year-old woman who survived the shooting. She and Odneal, 50, were in a relationship. Halverson, 42, had stopped by the house shortly before the gunfire.
Odneal had been at the center of numerous drug and stolen-property investigations. Detectives were at the home in December investigating an illegal chop-shop operation.
“I am just taking a couple of pieces of (expletive) that (expletive) hurt and kill people out while I’m doing it because I know these people really well and I know these people have done it,” Fleischer allegedly told a 911 dispatcher.
He surrendered to police at Forest Park after they reportedly talked him out of killing himself. Investigators found a semi-automatic handgun in his van.
If he is convicted as charged, the only possible punishment will be a life sentence.
Roe earlier said the moratorium on the death penalty imposed by Gov. Jay Inslee would not play into his decision.
He sought the death penalty in 2011 for a Washington State Reformatory inmate who was convicted of killing Monroe corrections officer Jayme Biendl. A jury sentenced Byron Scherf to be executed. He is among nine men on the state’s death row.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley
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