Man pleads not guilty to fatally stabbing 19-year-old in Federal Way

Charges have been filed against a suspect accused of fatally stabbing a passenger while driving in a stolen vehicle on Interstate 5 in Federal Way.

Jeffery Scott was charged with second-degree murder in death of Patriot Lemay, 19, and then was charged with two counts of assault in the second degree in the stabbing of two other people. Scott pleaded not guilty on Aug. 21.

At about 2:23 p.m. June 26, on northbound I-5, just north of South 375th Street in Federal Way, Lemay was driving a stolen BMW with three other passengers, including 44-year-old Scott, the left rear-side passenger. According to charging documents, while Lemay drove, Scott pulled out a 5-inch blade and stabbed another male passenger who was sitting in the right rear-side passenger side, and then reached around to the driver’s seat and slashed Lemay’s throat.

According to the documents, Scott then stabbed the female front right-seat passenger. Lemay, who had a firearm, then began firing at Scott, then pulled over the BMW on the right shoulder of I-5 before he succumbed to his injury.

The documents state that the responding officer was a state trooper who was working the northbound I-5 scale house when he was alerted by a commercial vehicle driver that someone was shooting at people in a BMW that had just come to a stop on the right shoulder of the freeway. The officer encountered the female and male passengers running toward the scale house. The officer said the pair said Scott had stabbed them and that Lemay had died. According to the report, the officer recognized that they needed medical attention.

The officer contacted the BMW and observed Lemay deceased in the driver’s seat, then located Scott lying down on the grass next to the passenger side of the BMW, bleeding and in need of medical attention due to suffering several gunshot wounds, according to documents.

Drug use

The female passenger in the front right seat provided a statement to police in which she said earlier in the day that she, Lemay, Scott and another male passenger were smoking fentanyl and methamphetamine on and off for about three hours at an apartment in Tacoma. She said she did not know Scott or the male passenger and had just met them that day. She said they left the apartment to go and help a friend in Kent, so they began driving on northbound I-5.

She said that without warning, Scott cut Lemay’s throat with a knife and then started stabbing her and the male passenger, according to documents. She said after the initial assault occurred, she heard several gunshots from within the BMW. She said Lemay pulled the BMW over to the shoulder and stopped. The female said she and Lemay were holding a cloth over his neck, trying to stop the bleeding, and she called 911 for help.

The male passenger, who was sitting on the right rear-side passenger side later provided a similar statement to police.

The documents stated that Washington State Patrol detectives interviewed Scott for about 45 minutes at a hospital after they advised him of his rights. At first, Scott said he did not know how anything had happened, but then he said the others in the vehicle had tried to rob him.

Scott said that on the day of the incident, he felt that Lemay and the female passenger were plotting to kill him. He said he couldn’t remember what happened after that except that someone started shooting at him as he was trying to get out of the BMW. Scott admitted that the knife, which was found at the scene with blood on it, belonged to him.

Scott’s trial is currently set for Nov. 18, although attorneys can request more time to prepare the case.