On the morning of November 3, 1999, Peter Giles, a 27-year-old male, was at his job as an office manager at the Northlake Shipyard on Lake Union in Seattle, Washington. The workday turned tragic when a gunman, later identified as former shipyard employee Kevin Cruz, entered the office and opened fire. Giles and a colleague, 43-year-old Russell Brisendine, were fatally shot, while two other men, Jaromir Mach and Patrick Ming, were wounded in the attack.
The shooter, who wore a baseball hat and sunglasses, fled the scene, prompting a massive manhunt that initially yielded no suspect. Giles died at the shipyard, which was co-owned by his uncles.
The investigation into the violent outburst continued for two months with few leads. A significant breakthrough came in January 2000 when a mountain biker discovered a backpack in the nearby Gasworks Park. Inside the foil-lined backpack, authorities found a camouflage jacket, a holster, and the 9mm handgun used in the killings. Critically, a DNA sample from the holster matched that of Kevin Cruz, a 32-year-old former shipyard worker. Prosecutors alleged that Cruz harbored a grudge against the company because it had terminated his disability payments after an investigation revealed he was faking an injury. In the fall of 1999, Giles had reportedly told a friend that Cruz had visited him and made threats.
Kevin Cruz was arrested at his home in SeaTac in early January 2000. During questioning, he admitted the backpack was his. Investigators also found a bullet in Cruz's bedroom that had markings indicating it had been cycled through the murder weapon. Although the two surviving victims did not initially pick Cruz out of a photo montage, they both identified him as the shooter in court. In February 2002, a King County Superior Court jury convicted Cruz of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. The conviction brought a resolution to the case that had shaken the local fishing and marine community.
