A 20-year-old man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2023 shooting death of Donald Harris, a 27-year-old killed while sitting alone outside an Auburn gas station. Tau’rean Forks now faces more than 23 years in prison after admitting he fired the shots that killed Harris from inside a stolen car.
Harris was shot on July 15, 2023, outside a gas station at 3910 S. 320th St. in Auburn, according to FOX 13 Seattle. The station reported the shooting happened around 2:40 a.m., while the Federal Way Mirror, citing charging documents, placed it closer to 2:42 a.m. Harris was sitting alone on a concrete curb outside the station when two stolen maroon Kia Optima vehicles pulled into the parking lot.
Forks was behind the wheel of one of those stolen cars. Surveillance video showed him pulling up within feet of Harris before extending his arm out of the driver’s-side window and opening fire — FOX 13 reported he fired multiple shots, though the Federal Way Mirror’s account of the charging documents says Harris was shot twice. Harris died at the scene. Detectives said Harris did not know Forks, and investigators found no indication of any prior conflict between the two.
A Deputy’s Chase and a Fingerprint Break
An on-duty King County Sheriff’s deputy happened to witness the gun’s muzzle flash and immediately launched a pursuit of both suspect vehicles, the station’s report states. Officers recovered the two cars several days after the shooting, but it would take much longer to tie a person to the crime.
Investigators eventually connected Forks to the shooting through fingerprints found on the interior driver-side window of one of the recovered stolen vehicles, per the same account. He was arrested in November 2024, following what the outlet described as an extensive investigation that combined witness interviews with cellular data analysis.
A Confession and a Claim of Intimidation
During a recorded police interview, Forks confessed to driving the stolen vehicle and firing the shots that killed Harris, the station reported. Court records say Forks claimed he felt intimidated by an associate in the car who had handed him the handgun — an account that has not been independently verified beyond that attribution.
A felony plea agreement was accepted in August 2026, with court documents identifying the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office as the filer. Under Washington law, second-degree murder is defined in RCW 9A.32.050, the statute Forks pleaded guilty under alongside a firearm enhancement.
Sentencing Recommendation and Scheduled Hearing
Prosecutors recommended a 220-month sentence for second-degree murder, plus a mandatory, consecutive 60-month firearm enhancement, the station reported. They also recommended 36 months of community custody upon Forks’s release and a permanent no-contact order protecting Harris’s family.
Forks was scheduled to appear before King County Superior Court Judge Taki Flevaris for sentencing Friday at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. The recommended terms would put Forks behind bars for more than 23 years combined.
The case echoes another gas-station killing in the area: in 2017, Ricardo Martinez-Perez shot and killed Roberto Matamoros Izaguirre in an alley behind a gas station on West Meeker Street in Kent, and injured another person. Martinez-Perez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree assault in December 2023, according to the Auburn Reporter, and was later sentenced to 26 and a half years in prison.
