PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — A teenager convicted of killing a beloved Puyallup store owner and his own teenage accomplice still insists he was not the triggerman.
Robbrie Thompson insisted he was innocent, moments before he was sentenced to prison for both murders.
Both people were killed in April of 2019, when Thompson was just 16 years old.
Thompson’s insistence that he is not guilty is surprising, given that a jury convicted him last September. And it contradicted what his defense lawyers said in court, that he was remorseful, that he was just a teenager who did not fully know what he was doing.
But the judge who presided over the trial and delivered the sentence didn’t buy it.
“Regardless of what the state can prove and how they make it seem, I did not kill Miss Nam,” said Robbrie Thompson.
It was an extraordinary moment in a case full of such moments.
Nineteen-year-old Robbrie Thompson denied that he shot and killed Soon Nam, the beloved 79-year-old owner of a Puyallup neighborhood store, back in 2019.
“I did not pull the trigger,” insisted Thompson. “I wasn’t, I wasn’t even inside nor knew of any intention to inflict harm upon whoever it was inside the store.”
The murder of Nam, the longtime owner of the Handy Corner Food Store, devastated an entire Puyallup community that regarded Nam and her husband like family.
Thompson and his accomplice, Franklin Thuo, fled the scene.
But two days later, according to Pierce County prosecutors, Thuo was dead, too, killed by Thompson who feared he planned to confess to the crime.
In court, Thompson spoke directly to Thuo’s family, but denied killing him, too.
“When Franklin died, so did a piece of me,” said Thompson. “It hurts. It hurts mentally walking around every day, being looked at as a backstabbing, untrustworthy guy who killed his friend in cold blood when I’m not and I didn’t.”
But Pierce County Superior Court Judge James Orlando was not swayed.
In sentencing Thompson, the judge said the central issue was to punish him for his heinous crimes but also leave time for a life outside of prison.
“I believe Mr. Thompson is dangerous,” said Judge Orlando. “I believe he has a propensity for violence in the future.”
With that, he sentenced Robbrie Thompson to 40 years in prison.
The judge reasoned that Thompson will be 55 or even a bit younger when he is released.
As for the family of his victims, no one showed up to speak. The prosecution said Mr. Nam simply wasn’t up to it. He sold his business six months after his wife was murdered.