Two men already under investigation for their roles in armed carjackings and home invasion robberies have been charged with murder, accused of fatally shooting a man while trying to steal his Dodge Charger, according to prosecutors.
Jonathan Montejano, 19, of Kent, and Alhusaine Drammeh, 18, of Federal Way, were charged Monday with first-degree murder in the killing of 26-year-old Robert Blowe III in the parking lot of a Federal Way auto parts store on Oct. 25. Blowe, armed with a handgun, fired at the men but was gunned down before they fled in a Jeep they had stolen at gunpoint three days earlier in Lake Stevens, charging papers say.
Kent police arrested Montejano and Drammeh the next day on suspicion of other crimes.
Montejano was charged Oct. 31 with three counts of first-degree robbery for his role in three armed carjackings in August and September in Federal Way and Kent, court records show.
He was also charged with second-degree burglary for a September break-in at a Kent gun shop, according to the charges. Cellphone records in that case also placed Montejano at a second gun shop burglary in Covington, where nine guns were stolen, charging papers say.
A .45-caliber handgun found in Montejano's girlfriend's house after his arrest was one of the guns stolen from the Covington gun shop, according to the charges. Police found casings from three different firearms, including .45-caliber casings, at the homicide scene, say the charges. They also recovered the key fob for the stolen Jeep, which was found in a field near the girlfriend's house that's a known "hotspot for the recovery of recently carjacked vehicles," the charges say.
Montejano and Drammeh's fingerprints were found on or in the stolen Jeep, according to the murder charges.
Drammeh was charged Oct. 30 with attempted first-degree burglary, accused of trying to force his way into a house in Kent after following the residents home from a Tukwila casino, and first-degree burglary and unlawful imprisonment for an armed home invasion robbery, also in Kent, in which four or five armed intruders held the residents and their tenants at gunpoint while ransacking their house, according to court records.
The residents of both households are Asian, though the family renting a basement apartment in the second house is not. One of the victims told police she was aware that robbery crews have been targeting Asian families in a spate of recent home invasions, the charges say.
Charging papers don't indicate whether Montejano or Drammeh are alleged to have been involved in other criminal activity targeting families of Asian descent.
Police found four 9 mm handguns in Drammeh's residence, and those weapons are being forensically tested, say the charges, which noted 9 mm casings were also found at the homicide scene.
Prosecutors requested both men be held without bail on the murder charge, citing a state law that allows bail to be withheld for defendants facing possible life sentences if there's clear evidence they have a propensity for violence that creates a danger to the community.
While the judge who signed off on Drammeh's arrest warrant agreed to hold him without bail, a different judge set Montejano's bail at $5 million, court records show. He's being held on an additional $500,000 bail for the robbery and burglary charges, according to jail records.
Just before 9 p.m. on Oct. 25, Blowe parked his Charger in front of the O'Reilly Auto Parts store in the 32400 block of Pacific Highway South, where he borrowed a vehicle diagnostic device and returned to his car, according to the murder charges filed against Montejano and Drammeh.
Video surveillance footage showed that as Blowe got into the driver's seat, leaving his door ajar, two people got out of a Jeep and sneaked toward the Charger, the charges say. Blowe had "a momentary interaction" with one of them, who ran away right before "there appeared to be gunfire between all three subjects," according to the charges.
Blowe collapsed on the ground as the two others drove away in the Jeep, say the charges. Police later found a 10 mm handgun next to Blowe's body, and a broken piece of plastic found in the parking lot was later matched to the Jeep's trim, according to the court records.
Other video footage obtained during the investigation showed Blowe's Charger had been tailed for at least a mile before he arrived at O'Reilly's, the charges say.
After his arrest, Drammeh told detectives "that he and Mr. Montejano chose to use handguns to carjack the driver of a vehicle simply because they liked the look of the car and wanted it," Senior Deputy Prosecutor Aubony Burns wrote in charging papers. "When the victim tried to defend himself from the robbery, Mr. Drammeh and Mr. Montejano opened fire on the victim, killing him at his car door."
Neither man has any prior convictions. Both are scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 27.
