A man with a history of criminal behavior was arrested on a murder charge Monday after a Southwest Washington woman arrived home to find the suspect and the sexually violated corpse of her roommate, police said.
Lucas Rasmussen, 36, of Longview, was arrested without incident and booked into jail for investigation of murder, burglary and sexually violating human remains, Longview police said.
Rasmussen made an initial court appearance in Cowlitz County Superior Court. He did not enter a plea and remained held without bail. His public defender at the hearing, Terry Mulligan, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
A probable-cause statement written by Detective Tory Shelton said Rasmussen admitted killing Alisha McLeod, 29, a Vancouver native, with a hammer Sunday at the duplex apartment McLeod shared with roommate Hollie Erickson. The court paperwork said Rasmussen sublets the apartment to the women.
Erickson told police she arrived home with her boyfriend and his 13-year-old son. She entered McLeod’s bedroom and found the body on the floor under a blanket — blood all around. Rasmussen was acting odd, Erickson said, but he didn’t stop her from calling 911.
“We don’t have any indication that (the roommate) was ever threatened or in any danger,” Detective Sgt. Chris Blanchard said in a phone interview.
Rasmussen initially told investigators that he had no contact with McLeod but then admitted to the killing, Shelton wrote. Rasmussen said he thought about killing someone for a long time, but didn’t decide to kill McLeod until about 10 minutes beforehand.
“Lucas said that Alisha was rude to people and needed to be taught a lesson,” Shelton wrote. “He decided to kill her because he did not think that anyone would miss her.”
Rasmussen told investigators that he borrowed the hammer from a friend and tried to force his way inside the duplex by kicking in the back door. When McLeod came to the door, Rasmussen said he had a “present” for her. He then chased her into the bedroom, where he hammered her in the face and head and stomped on her chest, Shelton wrote.
Rasmussen said he touched McLeod sexually, but did not go further, Shelton wrote.
Police said the hammer was found in a dumpster near the apartment, the same place where Rasmussen said it could be found.
Rasmussen’s criminal history includes convictions for drug offenses, criminal trespass, car prowling and malicious mischief, records show.
An item in a February 2014 edition of The (Longview) Daily News says Rasmussen was arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure after he was seen masturbating while walking naked in the lobby of the Quality Inn & Suites near Sunday’s crime scene.
Records show McLeod also run-ins with police. But friends told The Daily News that McLeod was a former drug user who had been clean for more than a year and was trying to help Rasmussen break his addiction.
“We’re all in recovery; one of the 12 steps of recovery is to ‘help the addict who suffers.’ Luke was that addict,” Dessie Howard, 20, told the newspaper.
An autopsy was planned for Monday evening. Rasmussen’s next court appearance is scheduled for Thursday.
