Everett man charged in death of daughter’s boyfriend

EVERETT — An Everett man was charged with second-degree murder Monday, nearly two years after shooting and killing a 21-year-old man who had been dating his daughter, according to the Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

Charles Heller, 49, is accused of shooting Dustyn Hunt in February 2019, after becoming angry that his 20-year-old daughter, Lauryn Heller, tried to sneak Hunt into her room for the night, the Seattle Times reported. When he knocked on the door to check on the two, he was armed; Hunt was not.

“This was what I was waiting for,” Lisa Hunt, Hunt’s mother, wrote in a message to The Seattle Times on Monday. “This charge means so much. … I started to lose any type of hope for justice. I felt like it was slowly being forgotten about and brushed aside.”

Heller’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

According to the charges, Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies responded to an Everett home just before 11 p.m. on Feb. 25, 2019, after receiving calls from Lauryn Heller and Heller’s wife.

Earlier that day, Lauryn Heller and Hunt had sneaked into the house, prosecutors said. They didn’t interact with her parents, but both Heller and his wife later told authorities they could hear their daughter talking and laughing with at least one other person.