News / Northwest

UPDATE: Suspect in Washington killings captured in Oregon motel

He's accused in grandparents' deaths

The Columbian

Published: March 11, 2013, 5:00pm

2 Photos

A police vehicle parks on a street near the Westshore Oceanfront Suites on Tuesday in Lincoln City, Ore. Photo Gallery

LINCOLN CITY, Ore. — Police stormed into a motel room in this seaside town Tuesday evening and captured a Washington state man suspected of killing his grandparents, ending a multistate search and a tense daylong standoff at the motel.

“Everyone’s safe. No one’s hurt,” said Lincoln City Police Chief Keith Kilian.

Police had spent much of the day trying to persuade Michael Boysen to surrender. After breaching the motel room door, they stormed in and captured him.

Kilian said they found Boysen lying on the floor on his back, and that he had sustained a self-inflicted cut. He was taken away in an ambulance.

Boysen was breathing, but it was unclear whether he was conscious and if his injury was considered serious, Kilian said.

The bodies of Boysen’s grandparents were found Saturday in their suburban Seattle home, a day after Boysen was released from prison and was greeted with a welcome home party.

During Tuesday’s siege in this tourist town, police pointed rifles at the motel, fired blasts from a water cannon and used a bullhorn to try to persuade Boysen to give up.

Police used a robot equipped with a video camera and a microphone to communicate with the suspect. The robot was sent onto a balcony outside the motel room. Police breached the door and were able to communicate with Boysen via the robot.

When Boysen didn’t come out on his own, police went in after him.

“We tried to negotiate,” Kilian said. “We saw an opening that didn’t compromise the safety of our officers.”

Boysen checked into the motel Monday night under his own name, but the name wasn’t recognized until Tuesday morning when a desk clerk saw a television story about the case and called the Lincoln City police, Kilian said.

Boysen, 26, made threats against members of his family and law enforcement while behind bars, Corrections Department spokesman Chad Lewis said Tuesday. But authorities didn’t learn of the threats until after the bodies of the grandparents were found and authorities had started looking for Boysen.

“Sources went to our staff at the Monroe Correctional Center and told us he had been threatening to do all this,” Lewis said.

The information was passed on to King County deputies, and that’s why King County Sheriff John Urquhart called Boysen extremely dangerous at a Monday news conference.

Boysen just finished serving nine months in prison on a burglary conviction, Lewis said. He had no violent infractions in prison — “nothing extraordinary,” Lewis said.

He served a previous sentence between 2006 and February 2011 for four robbery convictions. Those convictions were related to an addiction to narcotic painkillers, Lewis said.

Boysen’s grandparents picked him up from prison in Monroe on Friday, drove him to meet his probation officer and to get an identification card from the Department of Licensing. They held a welcome home party for him Friday night.

The bodies were discovered by Boysen’s mother Saturday evening. She had been called by a family member who became concerned that the couple hadn’t answered their door.

Authorities haven’t said how they died. Investigators determined that Boysen had been searching the Internet for gun shows.

The motive for the killings remains unknown, King County sheriff’s Sgt. Cindi West said.

“Between the family and detectives we have no idea,” she said. “It’s just bizarre. The family loved and supported him the whole time he was in prison.”

On Tuesday, the King County medical examiner’s office identified the couple as Robert R. Taylor, 82, and Norma J. Taylor, 80. The couple died Saturday. The cause and manner of their deaths remains under investigation, the medical examiner said.

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