4 dead after stabbing on Key Peninsula in Washington's Pierce County; police kill suspect

Kai Uyehara, The Seattle Times on Feb 24, 2026

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SEATTLE — A sheriff’s deputy fatally shot a 32-year-old man suspected of stabbing and killing four people Tuesday on the Key Peninsula, according to authorities.

A caller reported around 8:45 a.m. that a man was violating a no-contact order, according to a joint statement by the Pierce County sheriff’s office and Key Peninsula Fire. Sheriff’s deputies determined the order wasn’t valid because it had not yet been served, according to the statement.

While deputies were en route to give a copy of the order to the man around 9:30 a.m., multiple callers reported he was stabbing people outside a home on the 14000 block of 87th Avenue Court Northwest, according to the statement.

The home is in a census-designated place called Wauna in unincorporated Pierce County, near Gig Harbor.

A deputy arrived and shot at the man, killing him, said Key Peninsula Fire spokesperson Anne Nesbit.

Calls of “shots fired” came in at 9:33 a.m.

Authorities said four people were dead outside the home, including the 32-year-old man. A fifth person died of their injuries while being transported by Gig Harbor Fire.

No deputies were injured, Nesbit said.

A 52-year-old woman and her 33-year-old son are listed as residents at the home where Nesbit confirmed the incident occurred.

The two lived there until last May, when a Pierce County Superior Court commissioner ordered the son to vacate the residence and stay away from his mother for one year, court records show.

The commissioner wrote that the son had a mental health disorder, and that his mother had a valid reason to be afraid for her safety after he pushed her and told her that “her grave had already been dug,” according to the May 2 protective order.

The son was barred from possessing weapons and ordered to follow a treatment plan he received at Tacoma’s St. Joseph Medical Center, including taking medication, according to the court filing.

The mother filed two separate petitions in Pierce County for protective orders against her son since 2020, court records show.

In a December 2020 court filing, the woman said her son was having mental health issues and had threatened her daughter with a knife inside their home. She requested he be barred from entering their home for up to two weeks.

The woman filed another petition last April after coming home to find her cat missing, framed pictures destroyed, the smoke detector going off and her son “acting delusional.”

She wrote that her son thought he was “an Egyptian god” and had been threatening her and hurting her cat. She requested he be ordered to move out of their house, be barred from having weapons and receive a mental health evaluation and treatment for domestic violence, according to the filing.

The Pierce County Force Investigation Team is taking over the investigation.