SEATTLE — A 26-year-old man was arrested in the vicious stabbing death of a local chef inside the Capitol Hill light rail station.
At 6 Monday night, Seattle police announced the suspect is behind bars. The U.S. Marshal’s Task Force took him into custody in Eatonville earlier Monday.
The impact of his death is being felt far from the restaurant where he worked.
KIRO 7 is hearing from others who have been attacked on light rail. What is good is they lived to tell their story. That, sadly, was not the case for the chef who worked here at Harry’s Fine Foods.
“He was an amazing individual,” said a fellow chef.
He came with his son to honor his friend he knew only as ‘Corey,’ the kind, gifted chef he worked with at a restaurant in Kirkland.
“And he showed incredible tenacity,” he said. “And his skills as a chef was, you know, absolutely incredible. I think about his food all of the time.”
That time has sadly now passed.
It was news to Rachel Primeau that a 37-old man was stabbed to death late Saturday afternoon in the Capitol Hill Link Light Rail station. But then she remembered her own harrowing tale of being assaulted as she got off at another rail station earlier this year.
“And a young man came up and hit me with a hockey stick and then took off running,” she said. “And it gave me a concussion. I was bleeding from my head. And there was nobody to help me. Nobody.”
She says only her then-boyfriend was there to help.
“He ran after him and then he was able to bring him back to apologize to me,” she said. “But it was just bizarre. No security. Nothing.”
That is certainly not the case in the hours since this latest fatality. Eyewitnesses tell us the victim, a local chef we know only as ‘Chef Corey,’ was viciously stabbed multiple times. Good Samaritans tried to stanch the blood, but even paramedics were unable to save him. He later died at Harborview Medical Center.
In response, Sound Transit beefed up security at the Capitol Hill station. It is part of their $250-million allotment for security, double the amount of protection than in the past, a spokesman tells us. And riders have noticed. But they say it may not be enough.
“Transit, in general, is a space for high tension,” said Alec Remington, Seattle. “So, any way to relieve that or to calm things down. Security presence doesn’t always do that.”
It is all too late for this man.
“He was my friend,” said his former colleague.
Corey was the sous chef at Harry’s, described as an “incredible person.”
There was a “private vigil” for him yesterday to help those who knew and cared for him to “process the loss.”