A woman in Seattle has been charged with first-degree murder after she killed her father with an ice axe for refusing to shut off the lights in her house, police say.
Corey Burke, 31, allegedly told detectives that she was trying to convince her 67-year-old father, Timothy, to shut the lights off, but could not make him budge. She also told police that she had been in a highly emotional state due to the election, and felt that there was "something important" about Election Day, according to the Seattle Times.
Police were dispatched to the area she lived at around 8 p.m. November 5 after reports of someone breaking out the windows of a home. Burke then exited the house with blood on her face, and was taken to hospital for a mental health evaluation.
Police continued to search the home and found her father’s body in the basement, with wounds to his head and torso, according to the King County medical examiner’s report. A bloody silver-and-blue ice climbing axe was also recovered.
The day after the attack, Burke told detectives that she tripped and strangled her father with the axe, allegedly whispering to one that "I killed him,” the Seattle Times reports.
Timothy’s extensive injuries included wounds to his head and torso, 2-inch lacerations to his rib cage and a puncture near the base of his skull.
“Corey stated (when) her father started arguing with her, about the lights being shut off, that she ‘just freaked out,’” Seattle Detective Azrielle Brikey wrote in a report.
“The defendant told Detectives that she knew that she could not convince him to keep the lights off, so she went upstairs retrieved an ice axe and tripped her father, strangled him with the axe and her hands and then bit him and hit him several times in the head and side with the blunt and sharp ends of the ice axe,” a case summary by the prosecutor’s office read.
According to police, Timothy was something of a shut-in due to a number of health problems he was facing prior to his death and was living at his daughter’s home in Rainier Valley, Washington.
Burke was formally charged on Friday in King County Superior Court.
Prosecutors have asked that the court set a $2 million bail for Burke, citing public safety concerns and flight risk concerns. Her arraignment is scheduled for November 21.
