A 23-year-old Hawaii native — the mother of an infant son — was fatally stabbed Tuesday at her apartment in Washington state by her fiance.
Adele Ah Chan was found stabbed multiple times, and her 59-year-old fiance, Timothy Jackson, has been charged with first-degree murder.
Ah Chan moved to Washington to attend college after she graduated from Pearl City High School, her grandmother told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Friday. Her parents have gone to Seattle to bring her home, she said.
The King County Sheriff’s Office says a call came Tuesday night from an apartment in SeaTac and that dispatchers heard a disturbance before the call became disconnected.
The sheriff’s office says as deputies arrived, a man called 911 to say he was exiting the apartment with a 2-month-old baby.
The sheriff’s office says deputies found a 23-year-old woman inside stabbed multiple times.
SeattlePI.com reports the two argued after the woman told the man he was not the father of the baby, according to probable-cause documents.
Documents say the suspect told investigators the victim slapped him and then he stabbed her.
The man was booked into King County Jail on investigation of murder.
Q13Fox reported Friday that he was charged with first-degree murder.
Child Protective Services sent Ah Chan’s cousin Ashley Ah Chan, who lives in Washington, a Facebook message to help find next of kin. She said she now has custody of Adele Ah Chan’s baby.
Ashley Ah Chan said her cousin was engaged to Jackson. She described her as “kind. She was happy, she always had this big smile on her face. She loved to sing, she loved to sing to him.”
She said that JD, the baby, “will grow up knowing who his mom was and how much she loved him and cared for him and did everything for him.”
She told Q13Fox that it may be months before Adele Ah Chan’s parents can get custody of JD since they live in Hawaii.
Officials say Jackson has a history of domestic violence, just not with Ah Chan, Q13Fox reported.
The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with expenses.
On it Ah Chan’s sisters Angela and Tiana wrote, “The father of her 2-month-old son took her life brutally. … Though we are still trying to piece everything together and make sense of it all, somehow trying to fathom this nightmare is unbearable.”
They described Ah Chan as “young, optimistic, full of life, loving, funny, smart, caring of others, talented and a creative woman!”
“She was a proud Hawaiian who showed aloha to everyone!”
She was a sister who put her siblings first, a fun aunt who made time for her nieces and nephews, a daughter who was still her parents’ baby girl.
She was foremost “a selfless, motivated and devoted mommy to her 2-month-old son, JD!”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
