The 11-year-old sole survivor of a deadly massacre purportedly perpetrated by her teen brother at their family's sprawling Washington state home said she saw her sibling checking the pulses of their family members after he allegedly shot them to see if they were still alive.
After she was shot in the neck and hand, the surviving victim said she witnessed her 15-year-old brother "leaning over three bodies in the hall, touching their necks or chest to see if they were alive" after he allegedly fired on each of them point blank Oct. 21, court documents obtained by the Lawyer Herald revealed.
The suspect "entered her [the surviving victim's] room again. She closed her eyes and held her breath and pretended to play dead as he stood next to her bed. Eventually, she heard him leave the room and walk upstairs, where he could be heard talking on the phone."
The girl escaped through a "fire window" in her room and fled to a neighbor's home in her Fall City, Washington neighborhood, where they called 911.
She allegedly told detectives her brother had recently gotten into "a lot of trouble" with their parents, Mark and Sarah Humiston, over his failing school test scores, alluding to a possible motive, the documents read. She alleged she recognized her father's silver Glock handgun before she was allegedly shot and that her brother was the only one of the siblings who had access to the lockbox it was kept in.
The teen suspect purportedly tried to pin the quintuple murders of their parents and siblings on his dead 13-year-old brother, Benjamin Humiston, when he too called 911, pleading for help.
The underage gunman "systematically murdered his mother, father, two brothers, and sister, and attempted to murder his other sister. Humiston (the suspect) then staged the scene prior to the arrival of first responders to make it appear that BDH (Benjamin) had committed the murders and then killed himself. Humiston then further perpetuated the false staging by repeatedly telling the 911 dispatcher that BDH was responsible for killing all their family and then committing suicide," a detective with the King County Sheriff's Office wrote in the filing.
The alleged killer, whose identity has been withheld due to his age, faces five counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in connection with the grisly incident, according to court records.
"We want the court to know that our client is a 15-year-old boy who enjoys mountain biking and fishing and has no criminal history," his defense attorney, Amy Parker, previously told the court during the suspect's preliminary hearing last month, KING-TV reported.
The two remaining victims were identified as Humiston children, Katheryn, 7, and Joshua, 9, according to the King County Medical Examiner.
Prosecutors are pushing to try the juvenile suspect in adult court.
