Man Exhibiting Mental Crisis Charged in Unprovoked Shooting of Pregnant Woman in Seattle

A man who police say was exhibiting signs of a mental health crisis after he shot and killed a pregnant restaurant owner in her car in downtown Seattle this week was charged Friday with first-degree murder in her death, and prosecutors said they are seeing whether they can also charge him for the death of the baby girl the woman was carrying.

Cordell M. Goosby, 30, was arrested Tuesday soon after witnesses said he ran up to a car occupied by Eina Kwon, 34, and her husband, Sung Kwon, 37, the owners of a sushi restaurant near the city’s famed Pike Place Market, and started firing a stolen gun into the vehicle without provocation.

Cordell Goosby

Eina Kwon, who was eight months pregnant, was killed. Sung Kwon suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and the fetus died soon after emergency delivery. {snip}

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The couple was stopped at an intersection on their way to work at their restaurant, Aburiya Bento House, when Goosby ran up to them and started shooting, authorities said. He emptied the 9 mm handgun into the car and took off, throwing the gun down. When officers found him nearby, he put his hands up and said, “I did it, I did it,” police said.

In an interview following his arrest, police reported, Goosby told detectives that he had a history of mental health care and that he was being harassed by strangers who were spreading rumors about his sexuality and saying that he had done something to his caseworker.

“He did appear to Detectives to be in some form of crisis whether genuine or knowingly performed,” police wrote in a probable cause statement.

Goosby had no criminal history in Washington state, police said, but according to charging papers, he said he was wanted out of Indiana for a 2020 domestic battery case and has felony convictions from Illinois for drug possession and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. Prosecutors said they were trying to confirm that information before adding a charge of unlawful possession of a weapon.

The gun had been reported stolen to the Lakewood Police Department, south of Seattle, authorities said.

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Eina Sung’s death marked the 29th homicide investigated by Seattle police so far this year, according to The Seattle Times. Seattle police investigated 55 killings last year, up from 41 the year before that.