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South Park man shot dead in own home

SEATTLE — A South Seattle neighborhood is on edge after a longtime resident was shot and killed inside his house.

Police say the house was targeted. Neighbors believe the shooter fired into the wrong house.

Around sunset, Bryant Whitfield left flowers outside the unassuming house in South Park riddled with bullets.

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"It's such a sad situation," said Whitfield. "It just really hurt me. It could have been anybody around here. I stay a couple doors down, and I was sleeping in the living room. And it could have easily been me."

Keith Watkins was in the house next door.

"It took my breath away," he said.

He said he heard gunfire at about 1 a.m. Sunday morning.

"It was close," said Watkins. "I knew it was either our house or .. I thought it was us getting shot at. I really did."

Watkins said a man had left there in a huff just moments before he heard the gunfire.

"I think really it was just the heat of the moment for the person who did it," he said. "He was drunk when he came to the house."

Watkins said he thinks he knows who the shooter is.

"Well, I seen the person before the gunfire," he said. "It had to have been him. He was drunk and he got mad."

When the shooting stopped, the 56-year-old owner of this house was dead. Seattle police said his house was targeted.

But Laura Suggs, who lives nearly a block away, said she believes the shooter shot up the wrong house.

"I do think it was the wrong house because I don't see how that house could attract such behavior," she said.

Suggs is the former president of the South Park neighborhood council. She believes the suspect shot up a house of somebody he didn't know.

"Like I say, long-term family," she said. "Just living their lives. And so yeah, they were crying all night long. Very distraught."

Seattle Police said they plan to saturate this neighborhood with patrol cars, as the suspect still remains on the loose. People around the neighborhood said they won't breathe easy until he is caught.