SAMMAMISH, Wash. — A 35-year-old Sammamish man has been charged in connection to the murder of his wife, who was found shot to death at point blank range while lying in bed.
Brent Issac Hamaoto, 35, has been charged with second-degree murder after his wife, 36-year-old Yiwen Lu. According to court documents, Hamaoto allegedly purchased a handgun just a day before Lu was found shot to death in her bed.
On Jan. 30, King County Sheriff’s deputies received a call from a woman who identified herself as an attorney and said law enforcement needed to go to a home on 262nd Ave. SE because there was someone with life-threatening injuries inside. The attorney said the person who called her (her client) was no longer inside the house and left with his infant son.
When deputies arrived, they found a woman with obvious gunshot wounds to the head and was already deceased. According to court documents, the woman was shot twice, with the second shot being fired with the shooter much closer to her head. There were no signs of a struggle or forced entry into the home.
Deputies were able to eventually confirm that the infant was safe with an aunt, since the child and father were not at the home.
Hamaoto was arrested without incident a few days after the shooting.
According to court documents, he had filed a protection order against his wife. In that protection order, he said Lu threatened to leave the country with their son and refused to put Hamaoto on the birth certificate. She also allegedly threatened to kill herself and their son if Hamaoto tried to establish paternity. In text messages between the couple, Hamaoto accused his wife of raping him and said she threatened to kill their child, to which Lu replied: “I am trying to protect him.”
Hamaoto was charged with second-degree murder. Prosecutors ask that he be held on a $3 million bail, saying he is a flight risk and risk to the community.
“Clearly, the defendant is person who has extreme difficulty controlling his anger, in addition to having access to firearms. To kill someone while they are lying in bed reveals the defendant to be a person of extreme capacity to inflict violence and injury on others. Based on the extremely violent nature of the crime, the defendant clearly poses a danger to the public,” prosecutors said in court documents.
He’s expected to be arraigned on Feb. 13.
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