Suspect arrested in fatal stabbing of UW student at Nordheim Court

A 31-year-old man was arrested Wednesday night in connection with the killing of a 19-year-old University of Washington student, police say.

The 31-year-old turned himself in to the Bellevue Police Department around 10:20 p.m., said Seattle police spokesperson Brian Pritchard. Bellevue police then handed him over to Seattle police, and he was booked into King County Jail.

This is the man whom police shared photos of Wednesday afternoon, Pritchard said. The images were taken from the apartment building in the off-campus student housing complex, Nordheim Court, where the 19-year-old transgender woman was stabbed to death in a laundry room Sunday night, Pritchard said.

A judge set the man's bail at $10 million Thursday afternoon.

It is unknown if the suspect and victim had any connection or what the motive for the killing might have been. UW spokesperson Victor Balta said he was not known to university police.

The Seattle Times typically does not name suspects until they are charged.

An old classmate of the 31-year-old's said the man went through a "big personality shift" when they were together in high school at University Prep.

The classmate, who wished to stay anonymous because they did not want to be tied up in a high-profile murder case, described the man as friendly and somewhat popular."

But in 10th grade, "there was a moment where the light went off a little bit where he wasn't social," the classmate said. "He went from him hanging out with us to him sitting by himself and reading books."

The boy had started to exhibit behaviors that were "erratic," maybe even indicative of a mental health break, the classmate said. In one instance, he'd given a lecture to his classmates about drawing boxes inside of boxes that made no sense.

The classmate hadn't been in contact with the man for 10 years, but called the Seattle police tip line when they released photos of the man suspected in the killing. The classmate knew their old classmate to be nonviolent almost like a "Labrador retriever," but recognized the man.

To find out what their classmate is suspected of doing was "devastating," they said.

"I hope the arrest brings some sense of relief to our community," said UW president Robert Jones in a statement. "But this arrest does not lessen the profound shock and grief that the victim's loved ones and our campus are still experiencing or bring back a beloved, promising and talented member of our university.

An air of fear had settled over many University of Washington students in the days after the killing.

Students banded together. They offered to do laundry together and walk to and from classes in groups. Some laid flowers in Red Square to honor the woman who was killed. Turning Point USA postponed an event at the university after the community decried the planned speaker's opposition to gender-affirming care for minors.

Others questioned their safety at Nordheim Court in particular.

One resident in the off-campus student housing complex said her apartment unit had been broken into while she and her roommates were home, 15 days before the killing. When she got the university's alerts about the homicide, her mind instantly rushed back to that traumatic event.

The resident, a 20-year-old student who requested not to use her name because she was concerned about her safety, said she saw a man climbing through their kitchen window. She said she believes the man could have been the same person as the one arrested Wednesday.

He was partway in, having already popped off the window screen and moved vases aside, when a roommate screamed at him, the resident said. The man ran off and the roommates locked themselves in a bedroom until police arrived.

The resident said the man had a knife, a bolt cutter, tape, vapes and a tablet. University spokesperson Victor Balta confirmed that university police responded to the break-in, but did not confirm that weapons were present.

"If there had been a crime involving an individual with a weapon entering a unit that was verified, it would have prompted a UW Alert message or a Notification of Criminal Incident to the Seattle campus," Balta wrote in an email.

Apartment management moved the resident and her roommates to a new unit in a different building three days later but didn't tell the rest of the residents about the break-in, the resident said.

Another resident questioned the buildings' safety, saying the ID scanner to the laundry room had been broken and that the stairway into the building was pitch black in the dark.

Residents also told The Times it's relatively easy to get into the laundry room without an access code. Someone on foot could follow closely behind a vehicle entering the parking garage and walk through the building to the laundry room where the 19-year-old died, they said.

Materials from The Seattle Times archives' were used in this report.

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This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 9:46 AM.