On a summer evening in Kent, Washington, the life of 31-year-old Louisa Campos was tragically cut short. On August 12, 2016, at a transient camp located in the 22200 block of 88th Avenue South, a dispute with a man who had come to the encampment ended in gunfire. Campos was shot and pronounced deceased at the scene. The shooter fled, leaving a mystery that would haunt investigators for a full year.
The following day, the grim scene repeated itself when another resident of the camp, 48-year-old Robert Dias, was also found shot to death. Investigators quickly determined that Dias had been a witness to Campos's murder and that the same. 45-caliber weapon had been used in both killings.
For a year, the case remained unsolved as detectives worked tirelessly, interviewing dozens of witnesses. The breakthrough came on the one-year anniversary of Louisa's death. Kent police received a crucial phone call from an out-of-state witness who revealed that a man named Bradley T. Shaw, a 30-year-old Covington resident and Army veteran, had confessed to the murders. Shaw had contacted a former military friend and recounted the events of that fateful weekend. He admitted to details about the crime scene that had not been made public, solidifying his connection to the slayings. With this new information, police located and arrested Shaw without incident.
The motive for the cold-blooded killings was revealed to be a trivial altercation at a gas station. Shaw, who was intoxicated at the time, had cut in line and was confronted by someone, believed to be Campos. Enraged, he followed her back to the homeless camp. He returned the next evening, and after another confrontation where Campos reportedly "got up in his face," he shot her multiple times. He came back to the camp the following day to eliminate any potential witnesses, leading to the murder of Robert Dias, who he found holding a baseball bat. In August 2021, a King County Superior Court jury convicted Bradley Shaw on two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Louisa Campos and Robert Dias.
