Kent Police have identified the man who allegedly stabbed a female desk clerk during an attempted robbery April 8 at the Days Inn motel, 1711 W. Meeker St.
King County prosecutors on April 30 filed a charge of first-degree attempted robbery against Shannon D. Hill, 37, of Seattle, in connection with the incident against the clerk, a 41-year-old Kent woman. The woman spent two days in the hospital after sustaining stab wounds to her leg and back.
As of Friday, Kent Police still were looking for Hill. The state has issued an arrest warrant for Hill and requested bail to be set at $100,000.
Hill was last seen in April in Des Moines near South 216th Street and 30th Avenue, according to an April 30 Kent Police media release. Hill most recently lived in the 6000 block of Rainier Avenue South in Seattle.
In the April 8 attack, a man wearing a quilted coat, stocking cap and a blue bandana over his face, brandished a large butcher-style knife and demanded money from the motel clerk at about 8 p.m., according to police.
When the clerk hesitated to give him money, the man jumped over the counter and stabbed her in the leg and back after she struck him with a telephone receiver. The man fled when he did not find any cash and jumped into the passenger side seat of a waiting van.
But before the man left, the clerk managed to pull off the bandana covering the man’s face, according to charging papers. The motel’s video-surveillance cameras recorded the entire incident, including a shot of the man’s face before he put his bandana back on.
Police received several tips from people who saw the videotape of the incident on Seattle television stations. A tip from an inmate at the City of Kent jail eventually led to the identification of Hill, who had been released March 24 from the state’s Stafford Creek Corrections Center near Aberdeen. A corrections official at the Aberdeen facility also identified Hill as the man in the video.
After Hill’s release from Stafford Creek, he reportedly failed to meet with his assigned community corrections officer on March 27.
Hill has a conviction in 1991 for first-degree armed robbery. He also has convictions for motor-vehicle theft, possession of stolen property and reckless burning.
Hill is described as about 5 foot, 10 inches tall and 140 pounds, with a teardrop tattoo below his left eye and a faded tattoo on his forehead.
According to a Kent Police press release, Hill said he would fight anyone before returning to prison.
Anyone with information about Hill’s whereabouts should call 911 or the Kent Police at 253-856-5800.
Contact Steve Hunter at 253-872-6600, ext. 5052 or shunter@reporternewspapers.com.
