UW laundry room video shows moments before fatal stabbing of student
Video released by prosecutors on Thursday revealed the moments before a 19-year-old University of Washington student was brutally, fatally stabbed in the laundry room of her off-campus apartment building.
Juniper Blessing, 19, was found stabbed over 40 times on May 10. Christopher Leahy, a 31-year-old Bellevue man, is charged with first-degree murder. Blessing was a sophomore atmospheric science student from Santa Fe, N.M.
In charging documents, a King County prosecutor alleged Leahy stalked" another woman, "eventually following this student into the same building and same room where he would viciously murder Juniper."
Police spoke with another resident at the Nordheim Court complex who said she was walking to her apartment when she noticed a man was following her from behind, according to charging documents. He eventually followed her to the laundry room, where Blessing was found.
Leahy's arraignment, where a plea is entered, was rescheduled to June 4 from Thursday after his attorney brought up competency concerns. His attorney requested the continuation to evaluate Leahy's "ability to understand the nature of the proceedings and to assist in his defense," a motion states.
While many people charged with crimes in Washington are found to have mental health conditions, the bar for "criminal insanity" is high and specific, and several evaluations are required before that determination is made.
Prosecutors and police have not released possible motives for the attack or presented evidence that Blessing was targeted for being a transgender woman.
The footage, taken from a Wyze camera mounted in the corner by the laundry room entrance, begins about 25 minutes before police responded to a 911 call.
At 9:45 p.m., a young woman - not Blessing - enters the laundry room, holding the door open for a man - Leahy, prosecutors allege - to enter after her. The man says "thanks and follows her in. Exactly what he says next is unintelligible, but he references his clothes being there.
Just seconds later, he walks out. The young woman leaves shortly after, calling someone on her cellphone before exiting.
Minutes later, at 10 p.m., the video shows Blessing kneeling in front of one of the machines. A young man is doing laundry next to her. Blessing is cleaning the lint trap when Leahy enters the room again, glancing at the surveillance camera. He is in the room for less than 10 seconds before he leaves again, and the other man follows him. Blessing, now in the laundry room alone, scans the laundry app to pay, gets up and throws away the lint. The video ends at 10:01 p.m.
Police responded to the scene 10 minutes later.
In the video, Blessing is wearing a black University of Washington sweatshirt and sneakers with rainbow-pattern soles, kneeling on the ground as she does the chore.
The resident who called 911 told police she went into the building around 10:10 p.m. when she was passed by a man leaving. She held the door of the building open for him, and he thanked her. She then went to the laundry room, found Blessing and called 911. That witness told police she believed the laundry room door lock had been broken, and it usually required an apartment access card to unlock.
In charging documents, detectives said the surveillance camera's power cord was disconnected when initially examined by detectives. The last video uploaded from the device to the cloud was hours before the killing, and a video specialist was later able to recover footage from an SD card in the camera, documents state.
After detectives released images of the man from the footage, a relative and another tipster called detectives and identified Leahy, who turned himself in to the Bellevue Police Department on May 13.
Detectives released a fourth video recorded five days before the killing that had been sent in by a homeowner in Ravenna. In the footage, a man walks up to the front door and tries to open it. He appears to be wearing the same outfit as the man captured on the laundry room footage. The home is less than a half-mile from Nordheim Court.
Prosecutors allege a latent fingerprint, collected from the door leading into the laundry room, was a match for Leahy.
Blessing was described by friends as a talented singer and a kind person. She was an alto for UW Chorale, described as having a transcendent voice and a wide range.
"Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known - highly intelligent, extremely talented, and deeply sensitive to the needs of others," a statement from the Blessing family said.
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