Killer Had 3 Guns, 300 Rounds
SEATTLE — The young man who killed six people at a house party over the weekend had brought three guns, more than 300 rounds of ammunition, a baseball bat and a black machete, and told guests as he blazed away, “There’s plenty for everyone,” authorities said Monday.
Aaron Kyle Huff, 28, was “clearly intent on doing homicidal mayhem,” Deputy Police Chief Clark Kimerer said.
But investigators still have no idea why.
“We may be asking these questions over the next year or two,” Kimerer said. “Hopefully we will find some answers.”
Huff committed suicide when confronted by an officer outside the house early Saturday. Toxicology results will not be available for several days, Kimerer said.
The King County medical examiner identified the dead as Melissa Lynn Moore, 14; Suzanne Thorne, 15; Christopher Williamson, 21; Justin Schwartz, 22; Jason Travers, 32; and Jeremy Robert Martin, 26.
Two people wounded in the shooting were listed in satisfactory condition.
Police said the victims, many of them dressed as zombies in black with white face paint, had met Huff earlier in the night at a rave called “Better Off Undead” and invited him to a party at their rented home.
Huff left the party about 7 a.m. and returned wearing bandoliers of ammunition and carrying a 12-gauge pistol-grip shotgun and a handgun.
He killed two people on the front steps, three more in the living room, then went looking for more victims, police said.
He tried to enter a locked bathroom, jiggled the handle and fired a few rounds through the door, missing a frightened couple.
As shots rang out, neighbors called 911. When police confronted Huff, he put the shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
“What he might have done if he was able to leave this scene and continue this rampage, I shudder to contemplate,” Kimerer said.
At a news conference, detectives displayed an assault rifle, baseball bat and machete seized from Huff’s pickup. He had more than 300 rounds of ammunition, Kimerer said. The detectives said they seized additional weapons from the apartment he shared with his twin brother, but did not describe them.
The attack was “clearly a premeditated and well-planned assault on innocent people,” Kimerer said. “It is very clear that he had thought out a murderous spree, a campaign.”
Police determined that Huff’s twin knew nothing of his brother’s intentions. Huff had delivered pizzas during the five years he lived in Seattle.
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