EVERETT, Wash. — UPDATE: EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — A 62-year-old Everett man has pleaded guilty to killing a homeless woman authorities say he had been dating.
ORIGINAL STORY: Police have arrested John A. Derosia in the murder of 46-year-old Shannon Yeager of Everett. Derosia was on probation after serving 10 years for murdering his wife.
Yeager's body was found about 9:30 a.m. on Friday, June 23 after police responded to the 2900 block of Terminal Avenue on the report of a body along the Pigeon Creek public access trail.
Derosia, 63, had been intermittently dating Yeager.
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Yeager's father, Gary Bean, said his daughter struggled with addiction.
"She went into treatment numerous time. It worked for a while and then it didn't," he said.
But she never deserved the brutal death she suffered, he added. Bean also wants to know this was allowed to happen.
"Why can they let a person like [Derosia] out?," he asked.
During a voluntary interview with investigators, Derosia confessed to police that he met up with Yeager and the two had consensual sex. He said he killed Yeager after the two had an argument in a camp they were staying at near Pigeon Creek.
Derosia told police he stabbed and beat Yeager and assumed she was dead. He later went to back to the scene to hide Yeager's body. He found Yeager badly injured on the Pigeon Creek trail; he then said he slammed her head into the concrete until he heard "a crack."
Derosia had previously been convicted of killing his wife by beating and strangling her; he was imprisoned from 2004-2014 and is currently on probation. During that investigation, he also admitted to killing a co-worker and setting a fire to conceal the crime, police documents state.
The 1978 cold case involving Derosia's co-worker did not go to trail; Derosia was not convicted of killing his because investigators could not find enough evidence to corroborate his story to file charges, Cindi West with the King County Sheriff's department said.
Another man that police interviewed in regard to Yeager's murder told detectives that Derosia had admitted he started drinking again and that "he was going back to his old ways and wanted to kill someone."
He had been living in a clean and sober house in Everett when he was arrested Monday.
"I don't understand why he's being accused of this -- he was such a nice guy," him roommate Mike Eng said.
Bean also said he had previously met Derosia and also thought the same thing, but Bean is glad now he's in jail.
Derosia is currently being held on $1 million bail.