In the quiet morning hours of January 28, 2018, a discovery was made near the Lifestream Worship Center in Renton, Washington, that would unravel a story of a fatal encounter. A Honda Civic was found crashed, having driven up a sidewalk and into a hedge. Inside, the driver was unconscious. First responders initially treated the scene as a traffic accident, but upon closer inspection, a more sinister reality emerged.
The driver, a 29-year-old Asian man named Anh Phuc Phung, had not died from the crash but from a single gunshot wound to his torso. The discovery of the bullet hole, concealed by his arm, and blood under the driver's seat, shifted the investigation from a simple accident to a homicide.
Investigators quickly connected the scene to a report of gunfire the previous night, January 27, in the rear parking lot of Renton High School, located only about 250 yards away. Officers who responded to the initial shooting call had found two. 40-caliber shell casings, but no victim or suspects. As detectives delved into Anh Phuc Phung's final hours, they found messages on his phone arranging a marijuana deal that was to take place shortly before the shooting. It became apparent that Phung had been shot at close range while sitting in his car during what was described as a drug deal gone wrong. After being shot, it appeared he had attempted to drive away from the high school parking lot before crashing nearby.
The investigation into the death of Anh Phuc Phung led Renton police to two suspects. On February 1, 2018, detectives arrested 19-year-old Dyonte Jackson and 17-year-old Elijah Whaley in the Skyway area of South Seattle. Investigators believed that the teenagers had set up a drug rip-off. Both Jackson and Whaley were charged with first-degree murder, with Whaley being charged as an adult. At the time of their arrest, police indicated that while the two were involved in the incident, the individual who actually fired the shot that killed Phung might still be at large.
