Tag: Burien

BURIEN, Wash. – Video from the King County TAC30 SWAT team body cameras show officers taking 30-year-old Devon Detweiler into custody at a Jack-in-the-Box drive-thru after Burien PD detectives say he admitted to torturing and killing four kittens and told a friend he wanted to kill a human next. 

“Show me your hands, show me your hands,” can be heard in the body-camera footage as officers moved in on his vehicle. 

The TAC30 team was deployed because deputies say there was a good possibility Detweiler would be armed after he made statements that if police came for him, he would be ready. Detectives say he posed a potential imminent danger to the public and was charged with three counts of first-degree animal cruelty and one count of felony harassment – domestic violence.

The backstory:

Court documents show the arrest followed an investigation sparked after Detweiler’s father contacted Burien PD for help. He was too shaken to go to work after a friend of his son’s sent him Facebook messages and videos that allegedly showed Detweiler with two dead kittens and hearing him speak of wanting to kill a person. 

Detweiler’s father called him about harming the cats and told detectives his son got angry and threatened to kill him. Detectives said Detweiler told his father he was “working up to killing a person” and planned to kill him first. He immediately accepted help from the department’s mental health professional to cope with what he’d seen and the fear he was about to be murdered.

In the messages, prosecutors say, Detweiler described repeatedly harming the kittens after adopting them. “So I did kill him the day I got him,” one message read, according to court documents. He referenced several cats by name — Percy, Moose, Lucky and Tabi — and told the friend he kept getting more cats “in hopes to take it all back but it keeps happening.”

Detectives said the messages included photographs, including one they say showed a kitten that appeared to have been mutilated. When officers executed a search warrant at Detweiler’s home, they documented holes in walls from the kittens being thrown against them, blood, cat toys and food, court records show.

Detectives also recovered an audio message of Detweiler saying, “Every f—ing day, bro. I can’t wait until I do a person, bro, I f—ing love it, bro! I love it bro, I can’t wait.” 

Court documents recount Detweiler’s descriptions of the killings. He told investigators he had grabbed Moose after the kitten bit him, threw the animal against a wall and later threw it against a second wall, causing the kitten to die. He said he threw Lucky against a wall while holding him and later placed the animal in front of a fan, believing the kitten suffered a fatal heart attack. Detweiler told the friend he did not have a reason for throwing Tabi, saying the cat did not bite or scratch him. He referred to the cat as Tabi because he didn’t have it long enough to name it before killing it. 

“They were all beautiful sweet boys and I betrayed them one by one. People are next. I feel like,” one message read, according to the charging papers. Prosecutors said Detweiler also wrote he planned to continue harming animals and even sought free pets through Craigslist to target next.

“Imma start doin puppies too. Tomorrow we gon see if we can get a free puppy, see if we can kill it,” he wrote.

During questioning after his arrest, Detweiler initially told detectives he would accept mental health treatment, the documents state. While in custody, corrections officers said he later told them he planned to “rip his father’s head off” for contacting police.

He was arraigned on Sept. 2 and remains jailed on $50,000 bail. 

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