The 25-year-old resident investigated in the killing of a homeless man with an ax on First Hill has been charged with first degree murder.

King County Prosecutors say Liam Kryger, 25, killed 52-year-old Daravuth Van with an ax as he camped near First Hill’s Town Hall.

Prosecutors say Kryger was previously arrested in 2018 for a violent burglary and stabbing in North Bend that placed him in a treatment program under supervision of the King County Mental Health Court. Kryger failed to attend a scheduled review hearing in late 2019 but apparently had steered clear of the law until his arrest Sunday.

CHS reported here on Kryger’s arrest after two murders and an assault that left a man in critical condition in Cal Anderson in area attacks that have targeted homeless men over the past month.

Kryger stands charged in one of the deadly attacks. The charging documents for the First Hill murder don’t link the cases but Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz has said Kryger was arrested as detectives were on the lookout for a suspect possibly preying on people unhoused when they spotted a man carrying an ax and lost track of him near Freeway Park.

The ax was traced to a nearby Lowe’s home improvement store where SPD gathered images of the purchaser. A department of corrections officer was able to identify the suspect as Kryger and police and SWAT moved to arrest him Sunday near his 10th Ave residence.

Prosecutors say the First Hill case also has video evidence clearly linking Kryger to the slaying.

“Surveillance video establishes that the Defendant marked the victim’s location and open vulnerability nearly an hour before he returned, slowly approaching where the victim lay sleeping while repeatedly stopping to check his surroundings to ensure he was not being watched,” the charges read. “Once the Defendant had crept to a position where he was standing directly over the sleeping victim, he paused a moment longer before bringing the axe up behind his head and swinging it in an arc back down onto the victim’s head.”

SPD has provided no updates on the other area homicide involving a homeless man that preceded the killing of Van.

The Town Hall murder on February 22nd that Kryger is charged with followed a similar death discovered February 10th in a 12th Ave alley where longtime area homeless man Paul Ewell was found beaten to death in a pool of blood.

Another man was found alive with critical injuries early Saturday, February 24th in Cal Anderson Park.

Kryger is currently being held on $5 million bail. He has not yet entered a plea in the case.

UPDATE: The affordable housing developer of the 10th Ave apartment building where Kryger was residing says the suspect slipped through the legal process in moving into the Alder Flats. Ben Maritz says “Fair Chance Housing laws and the way the courts interpreted them at the time” made it so it wasn’t possible to know he was in violation of his release in the 2018 burglary and stabbing case.

UPDATE 3/7/2024: In a statement, Mayor Bruce Harrell praised SPD for the arrest but did not address why police failed to notify the public of their concerns for two weeks about a possible killer preying on people living homeless in the area and did not directly address an increasing number of violent crimes targeting the unhoused.

A spokesperson says the mayor means safety should extend to “everyone in our city, including those living unsheltered and the most vulnerable” and provided information on the administration’s efforts to provide increased shelter resources and affordable housing. The mayor’s office claims a “41% drop” in gun violence related to homelessness since 2022.

“There is clearly more work to do, and recent attacks where victims are homeless reinforce our commitment to supporting and showing compassion for people living unhoused, and solving crimes and holding perpetrators accountable as swiftly as possible,” the spokesperson said.

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