Family of murdered woman shares her story, Bellingham PD seek suspect
BELLINGHAM, Wash. - Bellingham Police are looking for a man suspected of shooting and killing a woman on Feb. 8.
Officers were called to a welfare check at an apartment near State Street and Laurel around 9:30 p.m. They found a woman dead in the stairwell with a gunshot wound.
That woman was later identified as Kasaundra Booker, who was on the verge of turning her life around from drug addiction, according to her mother.
Police launched a homicide investigation and identified 33-year-old Shilo A. Englert as the suspect.
A woman, not accused of the murder, said she last saw Booker and Englert in a stairwell at 22 North Apartments, smoking "blues. " "Blues" is the street name for fentanyl. The woman told police she left the two in the stairwell.
Booker was later found dead in the stairwell, shot in the head.
"I’m not ignorant to the fact that my daughter-- she was beautiful---, definitely had issues and I think they played a huge part in all of this. An I mean drug issues," said Booker's mother, Vickie Turner.
She had feared for her daughter’s safety because of her drug addictions and found some comfort in how she died.
"Nobody took her and drug her off and tormented her," she said. "It didn’t happen, and I’m blessed to know that."
Turner said Booker was supposed to move into the Agape Home for Women and Children the day before she was shot.
"[She] was going to get better and give me a grandbaby," Turner said, fighting back tears. "She was going to get better and have a baby and live a real life."
Police have issued a warrant for second-degree murder for Englert. He is considered armed and dangerous.
Anyone with information on Englert’s whereabouts is urged to call Bellingham Police’s confidential tip line at (360) 778-8611, or email at http://www.cob.org/tips.
Shilo A. Englert (City of Bellingham)
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