In the early moments of May 13, 2019, the life of 17-year-old Cameron Wilson was tragically cut short in a parking lot in Fife, Washington. A Black/African American male, Cameron was a senior at Todd Beamer High School with a promising future ahead of him; he was preparing for graduation and had plans to study computer science at Seattle University. In his free time, he enjoyed building computers from scratch.
His family remembers him as a kind, funny, and quirky young man who touched the lives of many.
The night of his death, a 911 call was made around 12:35 a.m. reporting a gunshot in the vicinity of the 1300 block of Willow Road East. Although officers initially found no evidence of a victim, a second call minutes later led them to a devastating discovery in a restaurant parking lot near Pacific Highway East and Willow Road East. There, they found Cameron Wilson, who had sustained a fatal gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene. He had no identification on him at the time, and it was his concerned family and friends who helped police identify him after he failed to return home.
The investigation into Cameron's death revealed a dispute over stolen marijuana. According to charging documents, Wilson had allegedly stolen a significant quantity of marijuana from an associate of 21-year-old Shawn Cooke a few months prior to the shooting. Friends of Cameron told police that Cooke had been contacting him to arrange a fight with the individual from whom the marijuana was stolen. Cooke had allegedly threatened to find Wilson with a gun if he did not show up. Surveillance footage from near the scene of the crime showed a person matching Cameron's description walking just before a Chrysler Sebring, later identified as Cooke's, entered the area. Shortly after, the car's headlights turned on and it sped off in the same direction Cameron had been walking. Another vehicle's headlights then illuminated Cameron's body in the parking lot.
Initially, detectives interviewed Shawn Cooke, but he was released due to a lack of sufficient evidence at the time. Cooke denied his involvement, claiming he had lost the keys to his car before the shooting and had been camping with his girlfriend. However, investigators later found video evidence of Cooke driving his car after he claimed it was lost. Cell phone records also placed him in communication with Cameron shortly before the murder and showed a map search for the location where Cameron's body was found. In September 2019, a warrant was issued for Cooke's arrest, and he was charged with first- and second-degree murder. The following month, U.S. Marshals apprehended him in a suburb of New Orleans, where he was hiding with his girlfriend. Cooke was extradited back to Pierce County, Washington, where he pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
