In the early morning hours of June 28, 2018, 46-year-old Evangeline Dasalla was found dead in the master bedroom of her Auburn, Washington home from a single gunshot wound to the head. Her 22-year-old son placed the 911 call from an adjoining house reporting the violence.

The investigation focused on Dasalla’s live-in boyfriend of nine years, 48-year-old Kenneth Thomas. Thomas, a Louisiana native and military veteran described as a sharpshooter, confessed to shooting her. He told detectives he was under financial stress, unemployed while Dasalla was working, and had not taken bipolar medication for about a month. Thomas said he believed Dasalla had put voodoo on him, accused her of multiple affairs, and reported seeing a silhouette on a hill outside before retrieving a 9mm Ruger from the nightstand and shooting her in the back of the head while she held her cellphone.

Thomas was arrested and charged with second-degree murder with a domestic violence enhancement and held on $2 million bail.