A 911 call reporting domestic violence at a West Longview mobile home park turned into a homicide investigation Friday night, after officers arrived to find a person shot to death and the suspect already gone. The man accused in the shooting, 24-year-old Josiah Karr of Longview, was booked hours later on suspicion of second-degree murder with a domestic violence designation, following a manhunt that stretched across the neighborhood into the early morning.
According to KIRO 7 News Seattle, Longview Police officers were first dispatched around 9:58 p.m. to 5600 Mount Solo Road for a domestic violence investigation, only for dispatchers to receive updated calls reporting that someone had been shot. Longview Police Captain Branden McNew said in a statement that officers arrived and located the victim dead from multiple gunshot wounds, and that Karr had already fled the scene on foot before they made entry, according to a Longview Police Department post on Facebook.
The shooting happened specifically inside the Del Ray II mobile home park, a 114-site manufactured housing community along Mount Solo Road in West Longview, as reported by The Daily News. The community, according to a Zillow listing for the property, previously operated as a senior living park before transitioning into an all-ages residential community of single-wide and double-wide manufactured homes.
Manhunt Closes In On West Longview Neighborhood
Karr's flight on foot triggered a multi-agency search involving the Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office, Kelso Police Department, and Washington State Patrol, per the department's Facebook update. Responding agencies established a perimeter around West Longview before Karr was taken into custody several hours after the shooting, and he was booked into the Cowlitz County Jail on suspicion of second-degree murder – domestic violence.
Washington State Patrol detectives, officers, and crime lab technicians stayed at the mobile home park through the night processing physical evidence, the department's account notes. Police said several children were inside the house at the time of the shooting but were not injured, and per Longview Police, the children were later returned to their families. The identity of the person killed, the exact relationship between Karr and the victim, and the motive behind the shooting remain unknown.
What Washington's Domestic Violence Statute Means For The Charge
Under Washington law, second-degree murder is defined as intentionally causing a death without premeditation, or causing death during the commission of a felony, and is classified as a Class A felony carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, according to the Revised Code of Washington. That distinguishes it from first-degree murder, which requires proof that the killing was premeditated.
The domestic violence designation attached to Karr's charge applies when an offense involves family or household members or intimate partners, and it triggers mandatory arrest provisions requiring police to act when probable cause exists for domestic violence assault, per the state's domestic violence statute. That framework helps explain why the case carries the added designation on top of the underlying murder charge.
A Second Domestic Violence Shooting The Same Day
The Mount Solo Road homicide came just hours after a separate domestic violence shooting in neighboring Kelso, where police arrested 38-year-old Buddy Wakefield on suspicion of second-degree assault – domestic violence for allegedly shooting his 72-year-old father, according to a Kelso Police Facebook post. The back-to-back incidents meant Cowlitz County law enforcement was managing two serious domestic violence gun cases within the same day.
The park where Friday's shooting occurred has also faced financial turmoil in recent months. Del Ray II LLC, the park's operator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March to reorganize roughly $13 million in mortgage debt, according to bankruptcy filing tracker Bondoro. That filing sought to address operational liquidity issues at the manufactured housing community, though it is separate from the criminal investigation now underway there.
Cowlitz County has seen other violent incidents in recent months, including an April shooting that left a man fighting for his life in Kelso. Karr remains held at the Cowlitz County Jail as the investigation continues, with the identity of the victim and the circumstances that led to the shooting still unreleased by police.
