Federal Way man found guilty for 2021 murder at Kent bus stop

A Federal Way man has been found guilty of killing a Kent man in 2021 at a Pacific Highway bus stop just south of Kent Des Moines Road.

On Oct. 1, Corniche Washington, who lived in Federal Way prior to being incarcerated, was found guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder with a firearm after killing Antonio Wells on Nov. 26, 2021, at the exact location where two of Wells’s sons were shot two days prior, Nov. 24, 2021. In addition to that charge, Washington was also found guilty of second-degree taking a vehicle without permission while armed with a firearm. He will be sentenced on Nov. 8.

The state, headed by King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jacqueline Lawrence, asked the jury to return a guilty verdict of first-degree murder, but told the jury that if they could not come to a consensus, they could look to the lesser charge of second-degree murder. During her rebuttal to the defense’s closing, Lawrence said that second-degree murder does not demand premeditation, but it does demand intentionality, which Washington admitted to during his testimony.

Closing statements

Washington shot Wells in the back and then shot him multiple times while he was on the ground, unlawfully killing him, Lawrence told the jury. She said that Wells was shot from behind as he was walking away from Washington after punching him in the face once, and then, in total, Wells was hit twice in the leg, once in the chest, and once in the lower back.

Lawrence said that Washington advanced on Wells as he was shooting, and continued to advance at Wells while he lay on the ground. Subsequently, Washington walked past Wells and began to approach Wells’s vehicle, which he would eventually steal, but not before turning around to face Wells once more, Lawrence said.

“But before he got to the driver’s side of that black Cadillac Escalade, Mr. Washington paused,” Lawrence said. “He turned around, he returned to the body of Mr. Wells, who was still on the ground, and he shot him that last time before he ultimately jumped in that black Cadillac and fled from the area.”

Lawrence said that after Wells was shot the first time, he never got up again, and he did not have a weapon on his person.

“This amount of force was not proportional, it was not necessary, and a reasonably prudent person in the same situation as the defendant would not employ the force that Mr. Washington did,” Lawrence said. She said the evidence shows beyond a doubt that the death of Wells was a premeditated murder in the first degree and was not a case of self-defense.

Defense attorney Lisa Mulligan began her closing statement, saying that words matter. She said that the day that Washington shot Wells — who she referred to by his nickname “Bone” — he tried to diffuse the situation and explain to Wells that in the situation he was in on Nov. 24, 2021, when Wells’s kids were robbing him, he had to shoot them, and he would too if he were in that situation. She said that, at that moment, no man could calm the rage of someone whose kids were shot.

“Bone then uttered five words that would change Corniche’s life, ‘I’ve got something for you,’ and in that terrible moment, Corniche was faced with a split-second decision that none of us ever want to make. His life or mine,” Mulligan said. “He reacted out of fear. He reacted out of a desire to survive, just like any of us would, just like the law entitles us to do.”

Mulligan said the state has to prove the absence of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt, and if the jury finds it even slightly possible that Washington was acting in self-defense, then they must find him not guilty. Mulligan said their defense is not about what happened, but why it happened. She said that some of the details that Washington shared during his testimony were blurry because it has been three years since the killing occurred, but they trust that at the end of the day, they will look through the facts and understand the situation Washington was in.

Mulligan said that when Washington shot Wells when he was on the ground, he did so because Wells was reaching for his waistband. He said Washington did not know that he had an injury by his waistband, and he reacted because he thought Wells was still a threat. Mulligan said that the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was there, but she asked the jury to ask themselves whether the state had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Washington did not kill Wells in self-defense.

“My question to you is, do you feel that same confidence that this was not self-defense? Do you have that same comfort, that same clarity about why this happened? If you do not feel the same way, it is not beyond a reasonable doubt,” Mulligan said. “That is how beyond reasonable doubt feels. You know it in your bones. The state has not disproven self-defense. Today, Corniche places his fate in the hands of twelve strangers.”

Photos of evidence presented during the defense’s closing statement. Photo by Joshua Solorzano/The Mirror

Evidence in the courtroom. Photo by Joshua Solorzano/The Mirror