SEATTLE — Driving a King County Metro bus through the dark, wet Seattle night, Timm Nelson was watching for the man suspected of stabbing his co-worker to death.
Then Nelson realized the man wanted in connection with the killing of Metro driver Shawn Yim had boarded his bus and was dozing behind him.
“I had his picture in my pocket for two days and then just, lo and behold, he winds up on my bus and we got him,” Nelson said, recounting his own role in the arrest of Richard Sitzlack just before 5 a.m. Saturday.
Nelson knew Yim, 59, who died around 3 a.m. Wednesday after being stabbed in the chest outside his Route 70 bus in the University District.
Several years ago, Nelson’s shift started around the time Yim’s shift ended, and Yim’s route went through Burien, where Nelson lived. To get to work each day, Nelson would hop on Yim’s bus as Yim drove back to their base.
“I got to know him pretty well,” Nelson, 35, said in an interview after a Saturday night vigil for Yim in the U District. “He was always nice.”
During the drive, Yim would place a can of cat food on his dashboard heater.
“There was a neighborhood cat that lived around his house,” Nelson said. “As soon as he got home, he’d pop (the can) open and feed the cat.”
These days, Nelson drives the RapidRide E Line on an overnight shift — 5:44 p.m. to 4:36 a.m. He was working when Yim was killed and heard something over the radio but didn’t know details until getting home. He was crushed.
“Somebody had made a post about it on Facebook,” the father of three recalled. “I couldn’t get out of my car. I just sat there for a while.”
Nelson called out from work the next night but returned to the wheel Thursday, after the police named Sitzlack, 53, and released his photo.
Before dawn Saturday, another driver — Anthony “AJ” Ross — reported a potential sighting of the suspect. Ross said a man looking like Sitzlack had gotten off his bus and then boarded another.
After a Metro dispatcher let Nelson know what clothes the man was wearing, Nelson spotted someone on his own bus who fit the description. The man had entered through the back doors and had fallen asleep on a seat.
Making a stop at Third Avenue and South Main Street in Pioneer Square, Nelson noticed a police vehicle parked nearby. Through his open door, he waved the officers over to the bus and explained the situation.
“They were able to talk out a plan,” Nelson said, calling the arrest a “team effort” that involved the multiple drivers, dispatchers and police officers. “Then they made their move and took him in without incident.”
Sitzlack was gone. But Nelson still had the suspect’s photo in his pocket.
“As soon as I pulled out of the zone where he was arrested, I just threw it away,” Nelson said Saturday night, near the spot where Yim died. “I was like, ‘I’m not looking at him anymore. I’m just going to remember Shawn.’”
