Mother worries justice system will be lenient on boy accused in 2 murder cases

The mother of a 22-year-old man shot and killed is pleading with the public and the judicial system at large. She worries for her community’s safety should the accused now 15-year-old boy be released from jail into home confinement before his trial.

The teenager is also suspected in a second murder case.

"I don’t know what else to tell you but that I’m going to do anything that’s possible to get justice for you," Maggie Perez-Zuniga said while visiting her son’s Renton grave.

She says her son Marc Anthony Valladolid was waiting for a friend in a Renton Safeway parking lot last October when somehow a verbal altercation with a stranger turned deadly.

"Marc got out of this car, raised his hands up," she said. "They backed up in to parking spot and the boy hung out of the window and hot him 5 times in the chest."

She says Marc was buried in November. Childhood toys and flowers overflow his grave. The pain she feels here shares space in her heart for the pain she feels for the boy accused of marcs murder.

"I want to forgive him I want to heal," she said. "I do forgive you son. I’m sorry people failed you."

The boy accused of killing Marc is also charged with 1st degree murder for the shooting death of a 54-year-old man in Burien back in January. While the teenager’s defense attorneys have yet to file motion, Perez worries they might ask the judge to release him to home confinement during trial.

Prosecutors plan to object that motion. Later next month, they also plan to ask the judge to try the teenager as an adult.

"The King County Prosecutor’s Office would object because regardless of your age, when you are accused of killing two people we think it’s reasonable to have somebody in detention for that," said spokesperson Casey McNerthney.

"This doesn’t have to happen to other families," said Perez.

Marc’s mother worries about her community’s safety. She says keeping the teenager twice charged with murder in custody before trial would shed a sliver of justice for 22-year-old boy who enjoyed playing music and dreamed of becoming a mechanic.

"My concern is that families don’t have to go through the pain I’m going through."

FOX 13 News reached out to the King County Department of Public Defenders asking if and when they might seek the accused teenager’s release from custody. We did not immediately hear back.