John Anderson thought the love of his life was trying to set him up to be robbed by a gang of rival drug dealers, so he decided to punish her.
That possible motive for the slaying of Rachel Burkheimer was revealed in court documents obtained yesterday under the state Public Records Act. The documents also suggest Anderson's anger at his ex-girlfriend had been escalating, and that drug use led Burkheimer into a web of conflicting allegiances with Snohomish County drug dealers and wannabe gang members last summer.
Only a year ago, Anderson, 20, was writing obsessive love letters to Burkheimer from a jail cell, where he was being held for violating probation for a firearms charge. Today, the Mukilteo man is behind bars again — accused along with seven of his friends of taking part in Burkheimer's kidnapping and killing.
Anderson and his friend, John Whitaker, a 22-year-old from Everett, have been charged with aggravated first-degree murder. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.
Yusef Jihad, 32, has been charged with first-degree murder. Jeff Barth and Tony J. Williams, both 22 of Everett, have been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping.
Nathan Lovelace, 16, of Lynnwood has been charged in Snohomish County District Court with first-degree kidnapping. Two others have pleaded guilty.
Burkheimer, 18, was last seen by friends Sept. 23 when she told them she was taking an acquaintance to the airport. Her family reported her missing Sept. 27. Her body was found in a shallow grave near Gold Bar on Oct. 5.
On Sept. 23, the day prosecutors and police think Burkheimer was shot to death, Anderson and his friends are accused of tying Burkheimer up with duct tape and beating and gagging her. She was shoved into a large bag and driven to a remote gravel pit, where she was stripped, forced to lie in the grave and shot several times.
Statements to prosecutors
According to statements obtained by prosecutors, witnesses weren't sure what set off Anderson on the night of Burkheimer's slaying, when he burst through the door of a friend's Everett duplex, punched a man in the face and grabbed Burkheimer by her hair. Other witness statements claim Anderson had been angry at Burkheimer because of her friendship with a Snohomish man. Burkheimer's friends told police that she and the Snohomish man were becoming involved, but that he and Anderson were enemies.
Letters Anderson sent to Burkheimer from jail last December were also included in the documents released yesterday. In one letter, Anderson wrote "when we get married" and in another filled eight lines of notebook paper with the words, "I love you." But other letters reveal intense anger at her because of her involvement with drugs and alcohol. He threatened her in large, handwritten letters and told her to write him back "within three days."
Karrie Roberts, a close friend of Burkheimer's, said Anderson had beaten and raped Burkheimer, and once tied her up in his house for three days, according to her statement to prosecutors.
A former boyfriend told police that Burkheimer's addictions to methamphetamine and cocaine ended their two-month relationship. He said he believed Burkheimer was doing drugs with Anderson and selling drugs for the Snohomish man.
Burkheimer's older sister, Meghan, told police that her sister occasionally used meth and co*ke.
Bill Burkheimer, both girls' father, said that only days before Rachel's disappearance he told the teen she needed to "either be in school, be gainfully employed or both."
He said she had been sleeping all day and spent all night running around with her friends. But he didn't know how severe his daughter's situation was.
"She never came to us," he said. "If she was really in trouble, she would have come to us."
Maurice Rivas, who has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the case, told Snohomish County Sheriff's detectives that Anderson and his friends robbed drug dealers, according to the documents released yesterday.
Rivas told police that shortly before her death, Burkheimer had invited Jihad and Anderson to a motel. Anderson was busy, but Jihad drove to the motel with Whitaker. They became suspicious because they saw familiar cars in the parking lot and movement behind the curtains in one unit. He said someone was peeping through the blinds.
"So they thought they were getting set up" for a robbery, Rivas said.
Setup suspected
An acquaintance of Burkheimer's told police that she had set them up because she knew that "they were planning to rob her friends for all their dope or something," according to the documents.
In the weeks before her death, Burkheimer told friends she thought Anderson was going to kill her. She thought she was on some kind of a "hit list," friends said.
"I just know that Diggy (Anderson) didn't trust her," Matthew Durham, a 17-year-old from Lynnwood, said in a statement to police. Durham has pleaded guilty to Burkheimer's slaying.
Bill Burkheimer said his family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit earlier this week against the eight suspects and Jihad's girlfriend, Trissa Conner, who failed to call 911 after finding Burkheimer bound and gagged in her garage. The parents of Matthew Durham and Nathan Lovelace have also been named in the suit because their children are both under the age of 18, and parents can be held responsible for their minor children's actions.
"The civil action fills in the gaps left by the criminal case," Bill Burkheimer said yesterday. "It is really making sure everyone responsible, even those not charged in the criminal case, are held accountable."
Jennifer Sullivan: 425-783-0604 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com
Emily Heffter: 425-783-0624 or eheffter@seattletimes.com
