19-year-old Kent man accused of shooting friend charged with murder

Nine days after turning 17, Tagaloa Tau Vataumalo was found dead on the side of Military Road South in SeaTac, apparently shot “execution style” in the head, according to King County prosecutors.

On Monday, his friend, 19-year-old Kasim Kone, pleaded not guilty to premeditated first-degree murder in Vataumalo’s Aug. 2 killing. Kone remains jailed in lieu of $2 million bail.

Kone later told King County sheriff’s detectives he was high on a mix of drugs and didn’t remember shooting Vataumalo, who went by Tau, charging papers say.

Six teenagers, including Kone and Vataumalo, drove from Kent to Southcenter Mall in Tukwila on the evening of Aug. 2. While the two girls in the group got food, the male friends stayed by the car, smoked marijuana and drank “lean,” a slang term for codeine cough syrup, charging papers say. Police also believe Kone consumed psilocybin mushrooms.

After the group made another stop at a McDonald’s restaurant, Kone got a call from his mom, who told him he needed to come home right away, the charges say. One of the girls later told detectives he started acting “really weird” and said “I’m too high” several times, according to the charges.

During the drive to Kone’s house, Kone was angry and aggressive and gave confusing directions to the girl behind the wheel, the charges say. They became lost and while at a red light at Military Road South and South 216th Street in SeaTac, Kone got out of the car and started walking south around 11:15 p.m., according to charging papers. The other teens tried to persuade him to get back in the vehicle, but he refused, and so Vataumalo got out of the car and said he would walk with Kone back to Kone’s house, the charges say.

A little after midnight on Aug. 3, one of the boys who was staying over at Kone’s house called the girl who had been driving and told her Kone had returned home alone and wouldn’t say where Vataumalo was or what happened to him, according to the charges. He asked the girls to pick him up so they could look for Vataumalo.

About a half-hour before that phone call, a man driving south on Military Road South called 911 and reported that a person was on the ground on the west shoulder between South 228th and 229th streets, the charges say. Sheriff’s deputies and Kent police officers responded and found Vataumalo along with one fired 9 mm casing and three unfired cartridges, according to the charges.

Vataumalo had been shot in the shoulder and forehead, the charges say. A projectile with a flattened point was found caught in the hood of his sweatshirt, leading investigators to believe the pavement was the backstop, consistent with him being shot in the head while he lay on the ground, according to the charges.

While police were processing the crime scene, three teenagers approached deputies on foot, showed them a photo of Vataumalo and said they were looking for their friend, charging papers say. The teens told investigators they believed Kone had shot Vataumalo but didn’t know why he would do so, other than that he was high on drugs, the charges say.

Police found a bloodstained sweatshirt that matched the sweatshirt Kone was described as wearing earlier in the night but wasn’t wearing when he arrived home, according to the charges.

Shortly after 4 a.m., deputies surrounded Kone’s house, he came outside and was arrested without incident, the charges say.

The charges say Kone told detectives he didn’t have “a complete recollection of the day,” saying he had ingested mushrooms, marijuana, meth, Xanax and lean. He described the two-tone Glock 17 handgun he had acquired for protection while acknowledging he isn’t legally allowed to have firearms, according to charging papers.

When a detective told Kone he believed Kone had shot Vataumalo, Kone “said this was not a surprise to him,” but he said he “does not have a memory of doing so,” the charges say.

Detectives at the shooting scene cut back overgrown blackberry bushes and found a gun with a 3D-printed slide and extended magazine that was consistent with descriptions of Kone’s gun, charging papers say.

Surveillance footage from a school north of the shooting showed Kone and Vataumalo walking together shortly before 11:30 p.m., according to the charges.

Seven minutes later, footage from a business’s camera, south of where Vataumalo’s body was found, reportedly showed Kone walking by himself.