Boy, 8, slain in Bellingham; teen arrested
jan_49
Boy, 8, slain in Bellingham; teen arrested
Victim left his house to play in a nearby park, and never returned; body
found in industrial yard
Saturday, April 20, 2002
By DAVID FISHER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
BELLINGHAM -- Michael Busby was a bright little charmer, a kid one of his
neighbors called "absolutely adorable, a real sweet kid."
He was one of the newest youngsters on his block, but the second-grader made
friends quickly, riding bikes with the neighborhood kids and bumming food
and candy from their moms.
The last person he met, however, was deadly.
Bellingham police say that the 8-year-old boy was abducted and killed
Thursday night by a 16-year-old neighbor. His body was dumped in an
industrial yard a few blocks away, next to the Pacific Concrete Industries
waterfront plant.
Michael's parents reported him missing at about 7 Thursday night, a few
hours after he left the house to play in a nearby park.
A search involving dogs, a helicopter, volunteer teams and neighbors lasted
into the wee hours of the morning but turned up nothing. A woman walking her
dog near the cement plant discovered the boy's body at about 10 a.m.
yesterday.
Police arrested the teenager at his high school yesterday afternoon,
following leads from witnesses who reported seeing him with Michael in the
industrial yard, police Chief Randy Carroll said.
The teen was held at a nearby hospital on suspicion of murder and kidnapping
while detectives obtained a warrant to search his body for evidence.
Officers also stood by at the teenager's house early yesterday evening,
waiting for a judge to sign a warrant to search it.
Carroll would not say how the boy was killed or whether he was sexually
molested. He refused to speculate on a motive.
Late yesterday, the teen was booked into juvenile detention, Lt. Dac Jamison
said. The 16-year-old has a juvenile criminal record, but Jamison refused to
say what it involved.
The teenager is expected to be arraigned over the weekend. Whatcom County
Prosecutor Dave McEachran said he would seek to have the teen tried as an
adult on a charge of aggravated first-degree murder.
Along the sunny streets of Michael's neighborhood in north Bellingham, lined
with old bungalows and craftsman houses and bordered with blooming magnolias
and antique rhododendrons, mothers kept a close eye on their children
yesterday while police worked toward an arrest.
The suspect has been causing problems in his Jaeger Street neighborhood for
four years, neighbor Carla Rood said as she kept an eye on her fourth-grade
daughter, Emma.
He has set fires here and there in trash cans and recycling bins, she said.
A couple of years ago, he broke into a neighbor's house while she was gone
and "set little ritual fires" on her countertops and hearth.
The woman, a mother with young children, was disturbed enough by the
incident that she moved a short time later, Rood said.
Michael, his parents and twin 6-year-old brothers moved into the
neighborhood in February, Rood said.
The teenager's younger brother was one of the kids Michael was pals with,
Rood said.
She saw Michael walk with the teenager into the teen's back yard shortly
before 4 p.m. Thursday.
"The last that was seen of Mikey was me seeing his back walking into that
yard," Rood said. "And me thinking "Oh crap! I should call him.'"
Police divulged few other key details of their investigation, but Carroll
and Mayor Mark Asmundson called a news conference to assure their town that
the crime was an isolated event, and that there is no danger that a random
killer is stalking the streets.
"This community is a safe community," Carroll said.
But Michael's slaying has knocked a chunk out of his neighborhood's sense of
security that may not be repaired anytime soon.
"It's gonna change the way we look at a lot of things," said Tiffany Sabin,
21, a 17-year resident who suddenly felt worried about letting her toddler
nephews play alone in their fenced back yard after Michael disappeared.
"I think everybody is still going to be really leery," Sabin said.
"Especially since it's not something that usually happens here."
Bellingham is a university town of about 15,000 that has seen its share of
tragedy recently. In 1999 an explosion along a gas pipeline near Whatcom
Creek killed two 10-year-old boys and an 18-year-old man.
At Michael's school, Columbia Elementary, a steady stream of parents stopped
by through the day to pull their children out early and walk them home,
student services director Ken Robinson said.
The district's Crisis Response Team, a group of counselors trained to deal
with trauma, was called in to spend the day yesterday walking the halls and
meeting with small groups and classrooms, Robinson said. Two police resource
officers guarded the playground.
At 200 students, the school is one of the smallest in the Bellingham
district, Robinson said. Its parents, teachers and students mostly all know
one another, and Michael was part of the tight-knit circle despite his
recent arrival.
The school sent home fliers advising parents to look for the signs of trauma
response in their kids -- sleeplessness, loss of appetite, unusual
restlessness or sluggishness. All are typical signs that young children are
trying to deal with intense feelings they can't understand.
At about 3 p.m., Carroll and a team of police officers visited Michael's
home to tell the family about the arrest and "offer them all of the
resources of the city and the police department" to help them deal with it,
Carroll said.
Later, he walked a few doors up the street and did the same for the
suspect's family.
"It's a very devastating situation for them both," he said.
--
Jan
Atheist #2028
"It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of
human cloning to come out of that chamber."- Pres. GW Bush, Washington,
D.C., April 10, 2002