Police search for person who shot, killed 51-year-old Seattle grandmother

SEATTLE — Police are searching for the person who shot and killed a 51-year-old woman in Seattle’s Madison Valley.

Family members identified her as Trina Bolar, a mother and grandmother whose husband had died just a few months ago. Police received a 911 call and responded to her home on East Arthur Place just before 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“My sister was a loveable, huggable, wonderful person,” her brother, Hollis Simmons, said. “This morning I get messages telling me she died and got shot in the head. I couldn't believe it.”

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Todd Grudzina works around the corner from Bolar's home and watched police search the neighborhood.

“When you don't have a suspect, it's a little more nerve-wracking,” he said.

Bolar's next-door neighbor, Teri Rutherford, said there was a constant flow of people and noise problems.

“You saw someone unpacking their stuff and they're moving in and three weeks later they’d be moving out again,” she said.

She worried something might happen after gunshots hit the house about six years ago.

But family member Arielle Pavageau said that was because of Bolar's big heart: she was a mother of two, a grandmother to two grandsons and a caretaker to the whole family and community, she said.

“If you, friends, everybody, if you needed it and she had it, she loved you. She was there. Even if she didn't know you, she was there to help,” Pavageau said.

Simmons said Bolar also helped the homeless, inviting strangers in if they needed a hot meal.

“I just don't understand why a person would do this,” Simmons said. “I don’t know what this world is coming to, but it's hurtful.”

Police have not identified any suspects.

Cox Media Group