SEATTLE — A 15-year-old boy will be held pending charges in connection with the deaths of two adults and three young teenagers at a home east of Seattle, authorities said Tuesday.
The teen waived his right to appear in court on Tuesday, the King County Prosecutor’s Office said. A judge found probable cause for five counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder the murders. A child was also injured and hospitalized.
During the hearing at Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center in Seattle, the judge also ordered the teen to have no contact with anyone described by prosecutors as the surviving member of his immediate family.
The injured person, an 11-year-old girl, was in “satisfactory condition” Tuesday at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, hospital spokesperson Susan Gregg said. Law enforcement officials had initially said the hospitalized person was a teenager.
Police say they believe everyone involved was related. A neighbor told KING-TV that a couple and their five children lived in the house.
The 15-year-old’s lawyers said in court that he has no criminal history and asked that the media not release his name until a charging decision is made, which the judge allowed.
Several people called 911 around 5 a.m. Monday to report a shooting at a home in Fall City, Washington, an unincorporated community about 25 miles from Seattle.
Officers found the bodies of five people in the home, said Mike Mellis, spokesman for the King County Sheriff’s Office. Arriving officers immediately took the teenager into custody, while the injured girl was taken to hospital. They both live in the house, Mellis said.
The 15-year-old was booked into the King County Juvenile Detention Center and no other arrests were expected, Mellis said.
Mellis said investigators believe the dead had been shot. Their names and causes of death have not yet been released.
This is the 32nd mass murder in the country this year a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.