In 2022, Sharmayne Jackson, a 32-year-old Black/African American woman and mother of two young daughters, moved from Anchorage, Alaska, to Kent, Washington, hoping for a fresh start. Her mother, Michelle McKnight, later said, "She still had so much life to live." Less than a year later, her life was cut short.
On the night of January 31, 2023, Kent Police responded to multiple 911 calls reporting gunshots at the Kent Valley Motel on Central Avenue North.
Inside one of the rooms, at approximately 10:23 p.m., officers found Sharmayne and a 43-year-old man named Sean Peoples. Both were deceased, having died from multiple gunshot wounds. Investigators believed the killings were not a random act.
Surveillance video from the motel and nearby businesses became a crucial part of the investigation. The footage showed a man and a woman loitering in the area before they knocked on the door of the room where the victims were found. After they were let inside, witnesses heard screaming and fighting, followed by seven gunshots in just 43 seconds. The couple was then seen on camera calmly walking away from the scene.
A significant breakthrough came from a discarded cigarette butt that detectives found outside the motel, where video had shown the suspects sharing a cigarette. In April 2023, the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab reported that DNA from the cigarette matched two profiles in a national database of convicted offenders. The profiles belonged to Corey Eugene Bills, 32, and his girlfriend, Scottina A. Johnson, 37.
In May 2023, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged both Bills and Johnson with two counts of first-degree murder. Johnson was arrested in June 2023. Bills was already incarcerated in a California prison for failing to register as a sex offender and was extradited to Washington in February 2024 to face the murder charges. According to charging documents, the killings were allegedly in retaliation for a drug-related death that Bills claimed Jackson had caused.
Scottina Johnson pleaded not guilty to the charges. As of February 2024, both she and Corey Bills remained in custody on $5 million bail each, awaiting trial.
