MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Only seconds after a suspect shot and killed a cab driver in Mount Vernon, he confronted a 17-year-old girl, who was two blocks away, in her car, waiting for a friend in a parking lot.
“I just heard a tapping on the window, and he was just standing there with a gun pointed at my head,” said 17-year-old Ashley, who asked KIRO 7 not to show her face or use her last name.
“I saw him clearly in the dark,” she said. “He said 'I'm going need you to give me your car.'"
Ashley was not aware that the man pointing a gun at her face had used the weapon seconds earlier to allegedly commit murder. Instead of panicking, Ashley said she was filled with calm and peace.
The carjacker ordered Ashley to leave her two cell phones and wallet on the passenger seat, and after she slowly got out of her car, he told her to give up her shoes and her coat, which she says she did, slowly and calmly.
“He said 'you really don't care about losing your life, do you?'" Ashley says she did not respond.
After the suspect drove away in her car, Ashley says she ran barefoot to get help, while ambulances and police cars were rushing to the nearby scene of where the same suspect, 29 year-old Solomona Fatu Luteru, is accused of killing the cab driver.
Ashley’s car was found more than 100 miles away Tuesday morning in Lakewood. Luteru was found nearby, where he was arrested.
When the accused killer ran into Ashley, she says he also unwittingly led police to his location in Lakewood.
“I tried taking my cell phones with me,” she said. “He was the one who told me to leave them there, and that's how he got caught."
Detectives say they tracked the cell phone signals right to the car.
Ashley believes she survived the encounter by keeping her cool at gunpoint.
“I wasn't really thinking about it, i was just thinking about getting out of there calmly,” she said.
Mount Vernon detectives have not revealed the motive for the taxi driver’s murder, or her identity.
On Tuesday afternoon, her company, Mert’s Taxi of Anacortes, published this message on Facebook: "On behalf of Mert’s Taxi, I would like to thank you all for the overwhelming prayers and condolences as we grieve the departure of a co-worker and friend. Much love to you all."
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