Local

Neighbors say Orting shooting victim ‘kept to himself’

News spread quickly among the people who live in Chinook Estates that something terrible had happened in a house where a 51-year-old man lived mostly with his German Shepherd dog and a cat.

He lived outside of Orting in Pierce County, and many of his neighbors say like a lot of people around here he kept mostly to himself. Still, no one expected Pierce County sheriff’s deputies would be outside his house after finding him dead inside.

“My neighbor had told me but she didn’t know what happened,” said Wendy Moore, a longtime resident of the neighborhood three miles outside of the city of Orting.  She says she didn’t know the victim well, but he was friendly.

“I never had any problems with him,” said Moore. “He wasn’t loud or anything. He was gone a lot. Had his mail on a hold a lot.”

Indeed, she says someone picked up his mail Monday.

Just three days later, neighbor Sharon Kisinger spotted a Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy outside his house across the street.

“And then there was two sheriff’s departments,” said Kisinger. “And they were there for like three hours, and then the next thing I know there’s like 10 unmarked cars.”

She says the deputies wouldn’t tell her much except that her neighbor was dead. They now believe he was murdered by two 16-year-olds, including Gabriel Davies, who mysteriously disappeared Wednesday only to turn up Thursday night.  The next night he was arrested.

It has left Kisinger surprised.

As Kisinger spoke, a group of motorcyclists appeared to be escorting a vehicle out of the neighborhood she says belonged to the victim.

Now, his murder has her and her neighbors shaken.

“It’s such a quiet neighborhood,” said Kisinger.

It appears that a 50-year-old woman with the same last name as Gabriel Davies lived for a time with the victim.    Investigators would not confirm her relationship to the suspect.

Investigators say more information will be released Tuesday.