Detailed update on man in WA who stabbed wife of 5 months & both of her teen daughters to death on Saturday,in WA
Joe1orbit
There was a TRIPLE murder/family massacre that occured in Washington on
Saturday. Somebody did post a news article to alt.true-crime on this case, but
not to my Mailing List. So I will go ahead and locate additional news items on
the case, and post to both forums, since this IS a pretty darn intriguing case.
A 39 year old fellow named Dayva Cross is in custody, charged with going on a
STABBING rampage on Saturday, targeting his NEW wife and BOTH of her teen-age
daughters. Hubby-Daddy Dayva did indeed successfully stab all three of his
targets to DEATH. He is facing three counts of aggravated murder. The wife was
37 year old Anouchka Baldwin, and the two stabbed daughters were aged 14 and
18. Dayva was NOT the biological father of either of them. He is also facing
charges of kidnapping, because after committing the triple murder, he held
another stepdaughter, aged 13, trapped and as a hostage inside of the house for
several hours, before she somehow managed to escape, ran to a neighbor's house,
and called police.
Our new triple murderer did surrender to arriving cops, without offering any
struggle. But as we learn below, just a DAY or two after his arrest, Dayva did
try to KILL HIMSELF, in prison. This was a serious suicide attempt, and Dayva
had to be taken to a hospital, where his condition was critical and only know
has been upgraded a LITTLE, to serious. Hopefully he can and will make a full
recovery. But according to one article, he has slipped into a COMA, which
cannot be good news. He tried to suffocate himself by ripping out the padding
from his prison mattress and stuffing it into his nose and mouth. Bummer!
Always sad to see ANY person direct their negative emotions inward, rather than
outward. He also suffered a SKULL FRACTURE, apparently after he was taken to
prison. I think that Dayva should IMMEDIATELY, as soon as he is well enough to
leave the medical hospital, be transferred to a top quality mental hospital,
where he can be properly supervised to PREVENT any future attemps at
self-injury or suicide. Returning him to JAIL would be an OUTRAGE, given his
CLEARLY irrational suicide attempt(s), AND the fact that he does have a
documented history of mental illness.
We get some interesting details on our triple murderer's past, indicating
some pretty odd and violent behavior. But no actual murders, until this past
Saturday, when Dayva claimed himself a threesome of human lives. As to the
exact 'trigger incident" that caused Dayva to embark upon this rampage, police
are being tight-lipped, and possible have not come up with any specific
motivation. The rampage occured early Saturday morning, with all three victims
stabbed viciously in the chest and neck. Interestingly, he only stabbed his
wife ONCE, while stabbing one of the two step-daughters multiple times. But his
knife aim was excellent, the force was powerful, and he killed all 3.
Dayva was married TWICE previously, and both marriages was filled with
violence, especially the first one, including many death threats, according to
relatives. He CHANGED his name, both first and last, years ago, and it's very
possible that his new wife had no idea that he had previously been married,
much less that he had been seriously violent in that marriage. He held her
hostage an knifepoint in 1988, before she finally left him and the narriage
collapsed. He was INVOLUNTARILY committed to a loony bin for awhile, after that
incident.
This new marriage occured in October, just 5 months ago. Twas a BAD decision
on Anouchka's part, a fatal decision, to engage in the toxic ritual of marriage
with Dayva, and she IMPOSED him upon all of her child-slaves, causing two of
them to get slaughtered as well. Under my Mandatory Parental Competency testing
proposal, EVERY person desiring access to a child would have to take and pass
the same strict set of competency tests. Thus, if Mommy Anouchka's DID take and
pass the tests, she would stall have to inform the authorities of her plans to
get married, and the aspiring new stepDaddy should and would have been forced
tro undergo EXTENSIVE testing and background investigation. he CLEARLY would
have failed my proposed tests, based on his background alone, and then the
Mommy would have had to CHOOSE whether to marry to stay married to Dayva and
LOSE custody of ALL her children, or reject Dayva, not allowing him to assume a
stepDadddy role, and get to keep her children.
Take care, JOE
The following appears courtesy of yesterday's Reuters news wire:
Murder Suspect In Serious Condition
March 9, 1999
Reuters
(SEATTLE) -- A man arrested for killing his wife and two step-daughters is in
serious condition after he reportedly tried to kill himself in prison. Dayva
Cross apparently stuffed mattress padding and cornbread in his nose and mouth
in a suicide attempt. Cross also has a skull fracture, from an unspecified
incident in the King County jail. Prosecutors expect to file murder charges
later this week against Cross.
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The following appears courtesy of today's Associated Press news wire:
Man held in killing of wife and two stepdaughters in serious condition
The Associated Press
03/10/99
SEATTLE (AP) -- A man suspecting in the slaying of his wife and two of her
teen-age daughters remained hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt,
authorities said.
Dayva M. Cross, 39, remained on a ventilator Tuesday after being upgraded from
critical to serious condition, Harborview Medical Center spokesman Larry Zalin
said Tuesday.
Zalin said he did not know how Cross fractured his skull.
"All we know is he had something in his mouth and nose that we suctioned out,"
Zalin said.
Art Wallenstein, director of the King County Jail, said Tuesday that a guard
found Cross lying face down in his cell at 11:52 a.m. Monday.
"He was on a suicide watch -- that means they had to check him every 15 minutes
-- in a very stripped-down cell," Wallenstein said.
The guard kicked the door to try to draw a response from Cross. When there was
no response, a second guard was summoned to open the electronically controlled
cell door.
When Cross was rolled onto his back, the guards saw his mouth, nose and throat
were crammed full of mattress stuffing. More help was summoned, the ticking was
removed from his airways and Cross had resumed some breathing by the time an
ambulance arrived to take him to nearby Harborview Medical Center at 12:15,
Wallenstein said.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, citing unidentified sources, reported Cross
stuffed his airways with a combination of cornbread and mattress stuffing.
Wallenstein said the inmate might have eaten some cornbread but none was
mentioned in the jail investigative reports.
The jail director also said he did not know how Cross fractured his skull. The
Seattle Times reported that after Cross crammed his airways full, he tied
something around his neck, pulled it tight, then fell and hit his head as he
lost consciousness.
City police were investigating.
Because Cross did not appear for the Superior Court hearing scheduled Monday, a
judge ordered that he remain in custody without bail pending arraignment.
Cross was arrested Saturday in the stabbing death of his wife of five months,
Anouchka Michelle Baldwin, 37, and her daughters, Salome Holly, 18, and Amanda
Baldwin, 14, all of Snoqualmie.
A third daughter, Mellissa Michelle Baldwin, 13, escaped from the one-story
house about 30 miles east of Seattle and alerted King County sheriff's deputies
after being held captive for nearly five hours.
The King County prosecutor's office expects to decide what charges to file
against Cross within a couple of days, spokesman Dan Donohoe said. Cross could
face three counts of aggravated first-degree murder as well as kidnapping and
unlawful imprisonment charges, Donohoe said.
"We're looking at the whole scope of charges," Donohoe said.
Court records and interviews with friends and family show that Cross, a truck
driver, has a history of domestic violence, drinking, drug abuse and mental
illness.
Born in Scranton, Pa., as David Mark Watt, Cross took his grandfather's name,
Dayva Cross, in 1990. He has been married three times and has three children.
His first wife, Irene Watt, told the P-I he often beat her and exploded into a
rage over small things. An avid bodybuilder who took steroids and was diagnosed
a manic-depressive, Cross once punched her so hard in the stomach she went to
the emergency room, she said.
"Every tooth in my mouth is chipped or cracked from him. I used to have patches
of hair he would pull out," said Watt, who lives in Clinton, Pa., where she and
Cross married in the late 1970s.
Watt left him after 10 years of marriage but he kidnapped her from her factory
job soon after and drove her to their house. There, he held a hunting knife to
her throat, Watt said.
"He said he was going to kill me and I was never going to see my kids again,"
she said.
Cross's second wife, Ellen, divorced him after seven years. She alleged he had
a drinking problem, smoked marijuana and physically and verbally abused her.
Last fall, Anouchka Baldwin told her ex-husband she was going to marry Cross
shortly after renting a room to him. The couple was married in October at
Snoqualmie Falls.
John Pritchett, who was married to Anouchka Baldwin for four years, described
her as a driven worker with two jobs who often went without sleep several
nights in a row. He said she would ride her bike for a newspaper route from
about 2 to 6 a.m. and care for an elderly couple in the afternoon and evenings.
"Her children were her life. They came before everything else in the world," he
said. Baldwin grew up in France, where she did some modeling.
She was married once before Pritchett, but that husband died in the 1980s.
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The following appears courtesy of the 3/10/99 online edition of The Seattle
Post-Intelligencer newspaper:
Triple-slaying suspect in coma after suicide attempt
Wednesday, March 10, 1999
By ELAINE PORTERFIELD and VANESSA HO
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
A Snoqualmie man suspected in the knife slayings of his wife and two teenage
stepdaughters remained in a coma yesterday, a day after an apparent suicide
attempt at the King County Jail.
Dayva Cross, a 39-year-old truck driver, was admitted to Harborview Medical
Center on Monday with skull fractures, a spinal fracture and choking-related
injuries. His condition yesterday was rated as serious, said Larry Zalin,
hospital spokesman.
Seattle homicide detectives investigating the suicide attempt believe Cross
likely blacked out after he stuffed mattress shreds and cornbread in his nose
and throat, fell, and injured his head, said police spokeswoman Pam McCammon.
Charges are expected in the case today, according to the King County
Prosecutor's Office.
King County Sheriff's Office spokesman John Urquhart said Cross appeared fine
physically when deputies arrested him Saturday. Urquhart said Cross never
complained of any injuries during the arrest, a blood draw or while being
booked.
Urquhart did not know if Cross struggled with the victims.
Art Wallenstein, director of the jail, said he was on duty Saturday night when
Cross was brought in.
"He was totally quiet and wasn't speaking at all, but certainly, he was
walking," Wallenstein said. "I don't know if he was under the influence of any
controlled substance or alcohol. That will have to come from the doctors."
Inmates brought to the jail are routinely asked if they have any illness or
injuries, he said.
Cross was bunked by himself in a psychiatric cell when he made his suicide
attempt. Inmates in such cells are checked about every 15 minutes.
"At around noon, a thud was heard, like someone hitting the floor," Wallenstein
said. "Staff responded and he was found lying down in his cell."
Also yesterday, the King County Medical Examiner's Office revealed that
Anouchka Baldwin, 37, and Amanda Baldwin, 15, both died from a single stab
wound to the chest. Salome Holly, 18, died of stab wounds to the neck.
A 13-year-old sister of the girls, Mellissa Baldwin, escaped unharmed. The
sheriff's office has set up an account for donations to the girl. Contributions
can be made at any Seafirst Bank.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 3/9/99 online edition of The Seattle
Times newspaper:
Tuesday, March 9, 1999
Suspect in Snoqualmie killings attempts suicide
by Arthur Santana, Ian Ith and Janet Burkitt
Seattle Times staff reporters
A man suspected of fatally stabbing his new wife and her two teenage daughters
in their Snoqualmie home Saturday was in serious condition this morning after
an apparent suicide attempt in jail.
Meanwhile, information from court records, former in-laws, relatives,
co-workers and friends shows Dayva Cross' life as sometimes strange, other
times normal and endearing - but too often violent.
Cross, 39, suffered a fractured skull and throat injuries in his King County
Jail cell in Seattle yesterday, two hours before he was to appear in court. He
was taken to Harborview Medical Center.
According to a jail source, at around 12:45 p.m., Cross ripped open his
mattress, pulled out the stuffing and crammed it down his throat and stuffed it
into his nostrils, then tied something around his neck and pulled it tight. He
fell and hit his head as he lost consciousness.
He had been under a suicide watch in which a guard checks on an inmate every 15
minutes.
Mike Graber, facilities commander at the jail, where Cross had been since
Saturday, would confirm only that Cross had been involved in an "incident."
Jail director Art Wallenstein also wouldn't explain what happened.
King County Deputy Prosecutor Tim Bradshaw said Cross will be charged with
three counts of aggravated murder.
Police and prosecutors said they were still trying to determine what happened
when Cross' wife, Anouchka Baldwin, 37, and her eldest daughters, Salome Holly,
18, and Amanda Baldwin, 15, were fatally stabbed about 8:15 a.m. Saturday in
their home on Southeast Reinig Road.
"I don't think there's ever an explainable motive in a case like this,"
Bradshaw said.
The King County medical examiner said this morning that Amanda and Anouchka
died of single stab wounds to the chest. Salome died of multiple stab wounds to
the neck. Cross also may be charged with kidnapping. Baldwin's third daughter,
Mellissa Michelle Baldwin, 13, was in the house for five hours before she
escaped to a friend's house and called police.
A woman who said she is Cross' sister but declined to give her name said
yesterday she could not understand what would have motivated the violence. "I'm
just heartbroken that these beautiful people lost their lives for no reason,"
she said.
When sheriff's deputies arrived at the house Saturday, they found Cross inside,
smoking a cigarette. He raised his hands as if to surrender. Detectives
reported finding each body in a different room. They also recovered several
knives.
Meanwhile, authorities are trying to piece together Cross' background.
In June 1990, he changed his name from David Mark Watt to Dayva M. Cross. In
the court papers, Cross said he was born in Pennsylvania and chose that name
because it was his grandfather's.
Police in Pennsylvania found no record of him under either name. Nonetheless, a
former in-law told a tale of violence and mental illness that left his first
wife scarred and his two children, now adults, emotionally damaged.
He was married in the late 1970s in Lock Haven, Pa., to Irene Watt. They had
two children - Crystal, now 21, and David Jr., now 19, said Irene Watt's
mother, Leah Dickey.
From the beginning, Dickey said, the marriage was doomed to end in heartbreak
and terror. She said Cross tried to kill his first wife.
He was obsessed with bodybuilding, Dickey said, taking steroids and acquiring
an insatiable appetite for expensive, high-carbohydrate, muscle-building
concoctions. He was good looking and buff, Dickey said, but "always a little
strange."
"He stayed sorta to himself," the former mother-in-law said from her home in
Blanchard, Pa. "He kept the window curtains drawn all the time. He acted like
the world owed him something. He never wanted to work. My daughter had to work
three jobs to support him and that body-building stuff they couldn't afford."
Finally, in August 1988, Watt picked his wife up from work, Dickey said. As
Irene left, she told a co-worker to call police if she wasn't back in a short
while.
When she didn't return, Dickey said, police converged on the family home.
Inside, they found Watt holding a knife to his wife's throat, her face "so
swollen you couldn't even recognize her," Dickey said.
After that, he was sent to a mental hospital in Williamsport, Pa., for
treatment, Dickey said.
Soon afterward, he changed his name and moved to the Seattle area.
Irene, now in her late 30s, has recovered from the marriage and now works at a
factory in Beech Creek, Pa., her mother said.
For a time, Cross' children traveled to Seattle to visit him. On at least one
visit, Dickey said, Cross locked them out of the house, leaving them to fend
for themselves in a strange city thousands of miles from their Pennsylvania
home.
As adults, the children haven't visited their father in a long time, Dickey
said, but news of his arrest and suicide attempt still upset them.
"He's their dad, of course," their grandmother said. "They love him."
In May 1991, Cross remarried. He and his second wife, Ellen, lived in North
Bend and had a son in August 1994.
A month before, Irene Watt filed for child support from Cross, who was working
for DiPietro Trucking in Kent, according to court records.
Ellen Cross filed for divorce in July 1998 and she, too, sought child support.
"One of the main reasons for (Cross') and my separation was his use of alcohol
and drugs, primarily marijuana," Ellen Cross said in court papers last April.
"This had been a long-term problem with the respondent and was growing
increasingly worse, creating both emotional and financial strains on our
marriage."
David Harris, an Issaquah attorney who represented Ellen Cross in her divorce,
declined to comment on the case except to describe the divorce as "quite
routine."
The divorce agreement required Cross to avoid drugs and drinking while his son
was in his care.
John Pritchett of Lynnwood, Anouchka Baldwin's husband for nearly four years
until their divorce two years ago, said she had been born in New York but moved
to France as a young child and that French was her first language.
Her grandparents raised her in France until she was 17, when she moved to North
Bend. She attended Mount Si High School and married a local boy, Kelly Baldwin,
when she was 19. He died in a car accident in 1988.
Pritchett said Baldwin fathered the two youngest girls, Amanda and Mellissa.
The father of the eldest, Salome, lives in Alaska, he said.
Pritchett said Baldwin married Cross in October in a ceremony at Snoqualmie
Falls.
An employee at Star Moving Systems in Woodinville, where Cross sometimes
worked, said Cross once mentioned that he and Baldwin married because her
relatives didn't approve of them living together.
Cross' sister said she thought Cross got along well with the three girls and
Baldwin.
But friends of the girls said that a year ago as they were heading to school,
they saw several King County sheriff's cars at the house. Later, Salome and
Amanda told them Cross had threatened to kill the entire family.
Sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart said there is no record of such an incident,
but it's possible the deputies were not told the entire story and therefore no
arrest was made.
Jeff Myers, a Mill Creek mover who worked with Cross and described him as a
close friend, said Cross called him at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, about an hour after
the slayings were said to have occurred.
Myers wasn't home, he said, but Cross left a message that he wanted to talk. "I
don't know if he was trying to reach out," Myers said.
Cross rarely spoke about his personal life, Myers said, but when he did, "he
was always speaking highly of the kids. He seemed to like them all just fine,
said they were good kids, good in school."
And sometimes Cross would buy roses to take home to his new wife, Myers said.
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The following appears courtesy of the 3/10/99 online edition of The
Wilkes-Barre Citizen's Voice newspaper:
Investigators in Washington triple
homicide look toward northeastern PA
By Fred Ney
Citizens' Voice Staff Writer
3/10/99
A triple homicide in a small community near Seattle, Wash., has investigators
looking toward northeastern Pennsylvania for clues about the suspect's
background that may help them determine the motive behind the crimes.
Dayva Cross, 39, previously known as David Mark Watt, was found by police
sitting casually in his rambling ranch home on Reinig Road in Snoqualmie and
smoking a cigarette last Saturday afternoon.
He put up his hands immediately, as if surrendering.
Police subsequently found the dead bodies of his wife, Anouchka Baldwin, 37,
and her two daughters, Salome Holly, 18 and Amanda Baldwin, 15, in the living
room, the kitchen, and a bedroom.
All had been stabbed to death.
The mother's 13-year-old daughter, Melissa Michelle Baldwin, escaped the
carnage with a minor blow to the head and managed to find her way to a friend's
house where she called 911 and reported the incident.
King County Sheriff's Department spokesman John Urquhart said: "We believe he
(Cross) did it. Right now, we want to know why he did it."
Cross was arrested and charged in connection with the slayings. He was jailed
in the King County Prison.
Detectives investigating the case believe that Cross was born in Pennsylvania
and was married in Lock Haven. He was also said to have what sounded like a
"Brittish accent."
They also believe that, in June, 1990, Cross changed his name from David Mark
Watt to Dayva Cross in a civil proceeding in Lackawanna County Court in
Scranton.
Local law enforcement sources told The Citizens' Voice Monday that Cross does
not have a criminal record in either Luzerne or Lackawanna County.
But King County investigators believe that a person or persons in northeastern
Pennsylvania may know more about Cross and they would like to hear that
information.
Cross was known to be divorced from his last wife last July. He and Anouchka
married late last year.
Anouchka worked as a certified nursing assistant in Fall City. Her slain
daughters were students at Mount Si High School.
The family lived in a remote rural area near the Snoqualmie River.
Neighbors knew Anouchka as a quiet, friendly person who was hard-working. "She
cut wood and tended animals," one noted.
The victims were all active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints in North Bend.
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