On the evening of December 15, 2016, My-Linh Nguyen, a 45-year-old woman, was walking home after her shift as a manicurist in downtown Seattle. Her journey was one she made regularly, taking the light rail and then walking the remaining distance to her South Seattle residence. Tragically, just steps from the safety of her house near the intersection of South Warsaw Street and 39th Avenue South, she was accosted by an individual intent on robbing her.
A struggle ensued over her purse.
During the violent encounter, Nguyen was shot multiple times. The sound of the gunshots reached her 15-year-old son inside their home. He and his father tragically found Nguyen outside their home, critically injured. She was rushed to Harborview Medical Center, but succumbed to her wounds and passed away. It was later revealed that Nguyen had been on the phone with a friend in Vietnam at the time of the attack, and the friend overheard the entire harrowing event.
In the wake of the homicide, the Seattle Police Department began an investigation. Nearly a year later, in November 2017, authorities publicly identified a man named Arshawn Ezekiel Mason, then 20 years old, as a person of interest in connection with Nguyen's murder. Police released photographs of Mason and warned that he should be considered armed and dangerous. At the time of the public announcement, he was wanted for questioning regarding her death. The attack was noted to be part of a concerning string of robberies targeting Asian women in the South Seattle area around that time.
