A security guard found dead in downtown Tacoma was severely beaten by a drunken U.S. Army Ranger after she tried to stop him from entering a building, according to court documents.
On Friday, Pierce County prosecutors charged 26-year-old Patrick Byrne, who is stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, with two counts of first-degree murder, first-degree burglary and two counts of first-degree kidnapping. Not guilty pleas were entered on his behalf at arraignment. Superior Court Judge Garold Johnson set bail at $2 million.
The 41-year-old victim was identified Friday as Denise Smith, of Seattle. She was found about 6:10 a.m. Sunday in the lobby of a building in the 900 block of A Street, where she’d recently started working. The morning of her death was only the fifth shift she’d worked there.
The building houses Division II of the Court of Appeals and several businesses.
A fellow security guard found Smith lying in the lobby with the front door propped open when he showed up for work. She was bleeding and unconscious. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.
“Detectives who later examined the victim reported that the victim was unrecognizable due to the severity of the injuries that were inflicted on her,” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
Security cameras captured the attack.
Deputy prosecutor Lisa Wagner argued in court that Byrne is a danger to the community and a flight risk. He’s from North Carolina, she said, and his family is still there. He was a member of the military at the time of the attack, but they are planning to discharge him, she told the court.
She noted the “absolute rage,” involved in the attack, and said it’s not clear whether the attack was random or targeted.
Charging papers give this account of the homicide:
Byrne was out drinking with friends in downtown Tacoma and got into a bar fight where he was punched in the face. He then left the bar and walked in the direction of the building on A Street.
The security guard was monitoring cameras from the lobby when she spotted a homeless woman washing in the fountain out front. Smith went outside to speak with the woman just as Byrne came into the area. When the security guard went back inside, Byrne approached the front door and Smith motioned for him to leave. When he didn’t, Smith opened the front door and Byrne tried to barge past her. She grabbed his shirt to stop him.
That’s when he began beating Smith for 8 to 10 minutes, records say.
“During that time the defendant repeatedly punched the victim with his fists, and he grabbed her by her braid and ‘dragged her around like a rag doll,'” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
He punched Smith in the face, stabbed her in the face with her keys, tried to gouge out her eyes with the keys and then flipped her onto her stomach and tried to choke her, records say.
Byrne allegedly continued to choke her for a minute or two after her body went limp.
“During the defendant’s lengthy attack on the victim, she repeatedly tried to fight back, and she tried to get away, but the defendant grabbed her each time and prevented her from fleeing,” records say. “He repeatedly overpowered her, assaulted her, and threw her around by her hair braid.”
He stands at 6 feet and she was 5 feet tall.
At one point, Smith tried to make it to the nearby elevator but Byrne stopped her.
After the security guard was unconscious, police say Byrne went into a conference room and smashed the interior glass of a window with a chair. Blood was found on the window and shards of broken glass.
He then went back into the lobby and allegedly threw things around, including furniture.
Cameras showed him walk onto a landing 14 feet above the ground and then disappear. Another camera showed him lying on the ground below. It’s unknown if he jumped or fell. After passing out for several minutes, Byrne could be seen getting up and walking away.
It was about 2 a.m. at this point and he went onto A Street and started calling for help. He told one passerby he’d been stabbed but doctors said later he had no stab wounds. Firefighters took him to a hospital, where Byrne allegedly told nurses he’d been sexually assaulted but refused to be examined.
He suffered a head injury and possible bleeding to the brain, likely from his fall or jump off the landing.
Investigators detained him Monday and Byrne was booked into Pierce County Jail on Thursday after being released from the hospital.
Byrne told detectives he did not remember the attack. He only recalled drinking in a bar and waking up in the hospital.
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