A Whatcom County man shot his girlfriend and killed her 14-year-old daughter at his Peaceful Valley home early Thursday before turning the gun on himself, according to Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo.
A Whatcom County man shot his girlfriend and killed her 14-year-old daughter at his Peaceful Valley home early Thursday before turning the gun on himself, Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo said.
The girl, Felicity Boonstra, was a student at Mount Baker Junior High. After being shot, her mother, Rebecca Boonstra, ran to a neighbor’s house for help. She was taken to St. Joseph Hospital with at least one gunshot wound and is expected to survive, Elfo said.
Elfo did not release the man’s name, but others identified him as the homeowner, Sean D. Wilson. Wilson, 41, was a Whatcom County planning commissioner.
Authorities responded to a 911 call at 3:19 a.m. that a woman had come to a neighbor’s home in the 600 block of Sprague Valley Drive saying she had been shot.
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When deputies arrived, they found Wilson and Felicity Boonstra already dead. Rebecca Boonstra was injured but conscious. She was too traumatized to give many details about what happened, Elfo said.
Elfo said deputies had been to the house at least once before, in 2008, for a domestic-violence report. During that incident, which occurred March 16, Rebecca Boonstra was arrested on suspicion of fourth-degree assault and brandishing a weapon, according to Whatcom County District Court records.
The circumstances of that arrest were not immediately available Thursday, although the charges were dismissed in January 2009 after Boonstra completed a domestic-violence evaluation and other conditions, according to records filed in District Court.
Only a few minutes before Thursday’s shooting was reported, Felicity Boonstra posted on her Facebook page that it was the third night in a row that Boonstra and Wilson were yelling and fighting. She wrote that Wilson had broken the phone.
“I just want to leave this house and be with my dad,” she wrote.
Rebecca Boonstra and Wilson had been together about eight years. She originally had moved in with him to be a live-in nanny to his son and daughter, according to a 2006 article in The Bellingham Herald. Authorities did not say if those children, who are still school age, were in the home or if they lived with another parent.
They also did not say whether Felicity’s younger brother, Cooper, was in the home at the time.
Friends of the family said Wilson and Rebecca Boonstra had troubles. They also said Wilson had a drinking problem and Rebecca urged him to attend Alcoholics Anonymous.