For their first date, Alexander Shaw and the young woman he’d met online just a few days before parked themselves on a dead-end street in Steilacoom with sweeping views of Puget Sound.
Then came the bullets.
Gunfire tore through the passenger’s side of the car, striking 19-year-old Shaw nine times and hitting the 22-year-old woman four times. The masked shooter brought her to St. Joseph’s Medical Center, leaving her date behind to die on a cold and rainy evening. Shaw’s mother said Friday that she’s sometimes thought of her son’s soul standing outside his body, scared and alone.
“It’s a mother’s worst nightmare, and that nightmare came true for me,” Cheryl Alatorre Bautista said during the sentencing hearing for her son’s killer.
Emilio Anthony Joseph John was sentenced Friday to 23 years in prison for the Nov. 5, 2022 fatal shooting. John, 23, pleaded guilty Feb. 7 to second-degree murder and second-degree domestic-violence assault.
The woman John shot was his ex-girlfriend, according to court records. They had a child together, and the two had reportedly been fighting before the shooting because John found out she was talking with another man.
Before he handed down the punishment, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Garold Johnson berated John for his violent behavior.
“Whatever is wrong with you, however it got here, I don’t know,” Johnson said. “The bottom line is you are a threat to the community. There is no doubt in my mind that you are.”
Murders in Steilacoom — the oldest town in the state — are rare. Including this killing, only three murders have been reported since 1979, according to state crime records. The owner of a Steilacoom marina was murdered in a robbery in 1989, and another murder was reported in 2018. Police Chief Thomas Yabe said Friday that the homicide of a 3-year-old child was investigated that year, and it has been under evaluation by the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office since then.
Johnson seemed to question why John’s criminal charges were reduced from premeditated first-degree murder, telling the defendant that based on his reading of the probable cause document, this was not some spur of the moment shooting where John lost control.
The judge said it occurred to him that the reduction was based in part on John’s youthfulness. Deputy prosecuting attorney Nicole Fensterbush told him the state took into account all considerations that they are obligated to. In court filings, prosecutors said their request to accept the reduced charges was based on John’s lack of criminal history, the facts of the case and his youth.
“Youth certainly has an impact on decisions that people make when they’re young,” Johnson said. “Hardly justifies this at all.”
Alatorre Bautista said John knew and planned what he was going to do, calling him a worthless coward while she addressed the court and stating that he deserved to never again see the light of day. The mother said John snuck up on her son in disguise, shot him multiple times and then left him there like he was nothing. Shaw was never given a chance to defend himself, she said. If he’d had the chance, she said her son would have beaten the crap out of him.
The mother and her husband found Shaw the morning after he was killed. According to court records, the parents last heard from him Saturday evening.
Alatorre Bautista said she would never forget finding her baby boy all shot up. Reading from her phone, she recalled trying to put back the driver’s seat to attempt CPR while on the phone with a 911 dispatcher. But there was nothing they could do, she said, he was already gone.
Police officers from Steilacoom and Dupont police departments responded to the scene, locating multiple 9mm and 10 mm shell casings, along with an Apple Airtag that one detective noted can be used to track people. A purse was in the passenger’s seat with a phone, so local hospitals were checked for gunshot victims.
Detectives later obtained surveillance video from St. Joseph Medical Center showing John put his ex-girlfriend in a wheelchair and push her into the emergency department before driving off.
Two days after the shooting, John was arrested at a relative’s home in Silverdale, according to the probable cause document. Detectives obtained a warrant to search the home, locating 9mm and 10 mm handguns, along with a shotgun and a revolver.
Shaw was born and raised in the Tacoma area, family previously told The News Tribune. He attended Steilacoom High School, where he played soccer and football. He also enjoyed fishing. Shaw’s mother said he was studying mechatronics at Clover Park Technical College before his death. He was the youngest of three brothers and one sister, and he has a 3-year-old daughter named Lavender.
Alatorre Bautista said their family is lost without Alex, and many of them are still grieving or suffering from post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety.
Shaw’s sister, Saraphina, directly addressed John when she spoke in court. At times becoming emotional, the woman peppered the defendant with questions.
“Did you listen to what he had to say before you pulled the trigger? the sister asked. “Were you able to see the fear in his eyes before he left the Earth?”
The sister questioned whether John heard Shaw choking on his own blood, or if he thought he was going to get away with killing an innocent man he had nothing to do with.
John’s defense attorney from the Department of Assigned Counsel, Chandra Carlisle, said her client grew up with drug-addicted parents and struggled with substance abuse himself. According to court records, John was raised by his great grandmother, and she died several months before the shooting. Carlisle said his “impulsive actions” were likely a demonstration of his lack of brain development given his age at the time.
When John was given a chance to address the court, he said he wanted to apologize to the victims. He said he was in a bad environment and wasn’t in the right mindset at the time.
“I’m doing a lot of time for my actions,” John said. “And I know I can’t make it right. But I’m just trying to do the best I can really.”
After court adjourned, Saraphina Shaw told The News Tribune John’s apology didn’t seem genuine. Asked about speaking in front of him, the sister said she wanted to jump across the table. Her tears weren’t for him, she said, and she shook not with fear but with anger.
Alatorre Bautista told The News Tribune she didn’t agree with John’s punishment, and the defendant’s age doesn’t make a difference.
“It should be a life for a life,” the mother said.
