LAKE STEVENS, Wash. — Detectives are investigating the death of a teenage girl as a homicide after they found blood-stained bedding and a broken knife next to her body.
Text messages from the phone of a murder victim after her death could lead detectives to her killer.
According to a Snohomish County search warrant, 18-year-old Summer Smith's mother received text messages from Summer's phone after the time the medical examiner estimates she died.
Summer's mother, Natalie Morrissey, told KIRO 7 her daughter was a "beautiful angel of a child" who had been living on the streets.
Her skull was found in woods near Lake Stevens earlier this month.
The medical examiner estimates Summer had been dead between six weeks and six months. That's why text messages from her phone to her mother in December raised suspicion.
Her mother told detectives the "tone and content" of the messages from her daughter's phone were out of character, and one even asked her mother to stop texting.
Detectives filed a search warrant to get information from the cellphone company that could lead to the killer.
Court documents show Summer Smith was accused of breaking into a Marysville home last year.
The homeowners awoke to find her asleep in their living room.
They told police she had stolen pills.
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