Sharmayne Jackson was 32 when she moved from Anchorage to Kent, Washington, in 2022 with hopes of a fresh start. She was a mother of two young daughters. On the night of January 31, 2023, officers responding to multiple 911 calls about gunshots at the Kent Valley Motel found Jackson and a 43-year-old man, Sean Peoples, inside a motel room. Both had died of multiple gunshot wounds. Investigators said the killings were believed not to be random.

Surveillance video showed a man and a woman loitering nearby, then knocking on the victims’ door; after being let in, witnesses heard screaming and fighting and then seven shots in 43 seconds. The pair were seen calmly walking away. Detectives recovered a discarded cigarette outside the motel; DNA from it matched two profiles in a national database, identified as Corey Eugene Bills, 32, and his girlfriend, Scottina A. Johnson, 37. Charging documents allege the killings were retaliation for a drug-related death Bills said Jackson had caused.

In May 2023 both Bills and Johnson were charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Johnson was arrested in June 2023; Bills was extradited from a California prison to Washington in February 2024 to face the charges. Scottina Johnson pleaded not guilty and both defendants remained in custody on $5 million bail each, awaiting trial. Does anyone have information about Jackson’s movements in Kent or about the motel that could help clarify what happened that night?