What began in a dispute between a woman and her boyfriend last Thursday evening, Feb. 18, Auburn Police say, ended before her horrified eyes in the man’s fatal stabbing of her eldest son.
On Wednesday, the King County Prosecutor formally charged Fritz Ratcliffe, 26, an Oak Harbor resident, with the second-degree murder of Jaseree Fountain. His arraignment is March 7.
At Ratcliffe’s first court appearance last Saturday, a Superior Court judge found probable cause to detain him and set bail at $1 million.
Auburn Police responded to the Auburn Oaks Apartments at 44 5th Street NE. at about 10:30 p.m.
Here is how events unfolded that evening, according to what witnesses told police and as contained in the Certification for Determination of Probable Cause, which police have since forwarded to the King County Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the account, the woman arrived at her apartment at about 7 p.m. after an outing with an unidentified friend. In the apartment were her son, Jaseree, Ratcliffe, and her niece,who was visiting from Minnesota.
Ratcliffe, according to the police account, was upset and began to argue with the woman. The woman left the apartment with her niece to buy alcohol, but when she returned, Ratcliffe was still upset, and very drunk.
The two continued to argue until Ratcliffe, according to the police account, turned his aggression on Jaseree, who according to the police account, had come to his mother’s defense and stepped between them.
According to the police account, Ratcliffe then stabbed the young man with a six-to-seven-inch long folding knife. The woman ran out of the apartment with her niece and began knocking on the neighbors’ doors, screaming for help.
According to the police account, when they arrived about 10:30, Ratcliffe had already fled in his Dodge. Police found Jaseree with his legs up on a couch and his body on the floor of a small bedroom. There was blood on the floor and on a wall. Police and medics tried to revive Jaseree but it was too late.
Anacortes Police later detained Ratcliffe. and Auburn detectives returned him to the SCORE jail. Police served and processed warrants on the apartment and on Ratcliffe’s car.
