Widow worries teen murder suspect could be allowed to await trial on home monitoring

Carsha Pressley-Pace’s husband is dead and now the Renton teen accused of his murder wants to be released while awaiting his trial, at home.

The 15-year-old is suspected of killing two strangers within three months.

The widow is speaking out while a judge decides whether the teen suspect will be tried as an adult.

She is worried the teen will be released from juvenile detention while his case is pending.

It is just a new worry for a woman who has already been through a lot.

Her husband was shot dead as he walked out of Circle Food Store last January.

“Him not here is just like crazy, super crazy,” said Pressley-Pace.

She is still trying to accept the unthinkable — that the 54-year-old man she married just three years ago, is dead.

“I still wake up every day like this man’s really not here,” Pressley-Pace said, shaking her head. “He’s really gone.”

Anthony Pace was a regular at Circle Food Store, just down from their Renton home. On the night of Jan. 12, he stopped there to pick up a few things.

His widow picks up the story from there.

“He came out here,” said Pressley-Pace. “The young man was standing right there. He took a step or two. He got his attention some way. He turned around. And he shot him right here. He laid right here. The kid got in the car and they drove off.”

Nearly three months earlier, a 22-year-old man was shot and killed in a Safeway parking lot nearly four miles away, also in Renton. When police finally cracked the case, they arrested a Renton teenager.

He is now charged in juvenile court with the murders of two people he did not know.

“He got shot in his hand,” said Pressley-Pace. “He got right here. He got shot like right. And right here.”

Pace’s widow has a new concern.

“They’re saying he wants to go home on house arrest,” said Pressley-Pace. “This child does.”

But Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the King County prosecutor, says that so far, the teen’s lawyer has not formally requested for the teen to be electronically monitored. The county plans to fight it.

“We think when you are accused of killing two people and you’re charged with murder, that’s a case that reasonably needs to be held in detention,” McNerthney said.

The current case merits concern because in a separate case, two teens suspected of killing a pot shop employee in Tacoma last month were both on electronic monitoring.

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