A 62-year-old man has been arrested for the murder of a Federal Way woman and a Kent man whose remains were found in suitcases along a West Seattle beach in June.
On Aug. 19, detectives arrested the 62-year-old male suspect at a residence in Burien, according to the Seattle Police Department. The man was interviewed and then booked into the King County Jail.
On June 19, Seattle Police and Seattle Fire recovered bags containing human remains that were located near the water in the 1100 block of Alki Avenue SW. The agencies initially responded to the area for reports of a suspicious suitcase that had washed up on the beach. Another bag was found in the water, the Federal Way Mirror previously reported.
The bodies were identified as 35-year-old Jessica Lewis, who died on June 16 from multiple gunshot wounds. The second body was identified as 27-year-old Austin Wenner, who died on June 16 from a gunshot wound to the torso. Both of the deaths have been ruled as homicides.
Lewis, who lived in Federal Way, and Wenner, who lived in Kent, were in a long-term relationship, said Gina Jaschke, Lewis’s aunt.
The couple had been dating for about eight years, Jaschke told the Mirror, and described the two as good-hearted people “trying to make it in this world.”
Seattle Police said the case remains under investigation.
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