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Seattle, Washington – An elderly White woman who worked as a neighborhood dogwalker was carjacked and killed, police say, after a Black man forcibly removed her from a car and ran her over with it.
The suspect has now been identified as 48-year-old Jahmed Kamal Haynes, an eight-time felonious offender once convicted of vehicular homicide but allowed to walk free, reports confirmed.
Haynes—who is Black—was hit with a slew of criminal charges on Friday, including homicide, assault, and animal cruelty, for his alleged role in the horrific and violent murder of 80-year-old Ruth Dalton and her dog Prince.
According to reports, surveillance camera footage showed Haynes approach Dalton, sitting inside her Subaru Forester on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Seattle’s Madison Valley area. A criminal complaint suggests that Haynes struggled to pull the 80-year-old woman out of the car, leaving her to hang halfway outside the window before a bystander confronted him with a baseball bat.
Haynes then allegedly threatened the individual with a knife, prompting the bystander to swing the bat, breaking some of the car windows, and allowing several dogs trapped inside the car to escape the scene. When Haynes took complete control of Dalton’s car, he reversed, reports say, sending the elderly woman to the street and running her over as he fled the scene.
Reports further allege that Dalton was dragged a considerable distance as the Black man made off with the car, filling the area with the sound of screams.
Later that day, police responded to a call about a “man abusing a dog” at Seattle’s Brighton Playfield, a park roughly five miles from the murder scene. That’s when Dalton’s stolen car was found abandoned with “heavy damage,” and her dog, Prince, was found stabbed to death in a nearby recycling bin.
Police then assert that Dalton’s blood-covered phone was discovered inside the same bin containing Haynes’ fingerprints, which had already been cataloged in Police databases from previous arrests and convictions. Reports state that eyewitnesses described a suspect with similar features to Haynes, including an alleged use of a prosthetic leg, which Haynes also relies on for mobility.
On Wednesday, a SWAT team brought Haynes into custody near his home in Seattle’s Capitol Hill area, where they were said to have found the keys to Dalton’s car, as well as a knife coated with blood and dog fur.
If convicted of the murder of Ruth Dalton—or for the assault against the unnamed bystander—Haynes is expected to face life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He currently sits without bail in the King County Correctional Facility pending trial.
However, questions remain as to how Haynes wasn’t already in prison for life, considering a laundry list of persistent criminal behavior, described by Seattle Police Department Deputy Chief Eric Barden as a history of “mental health concerns.”
Perhaps the worst of his offenses occurred in 1993 when he was convicted of vehicular homicide. At the time, Haynes had been driving drunk with a blood alcohol content of .12 when he crashed into oncoming traffic, killing a driver who was ejected through the windshield. Haynes would only be sentenced to three years in prison for the crime.
In 1995, he was convicted of the delivery of controlled substances, then again in 1999 for a first-degree robbery, a vehicle theft.
In 2003, the Black career criminal was convicted again for attempting to escape from prison, where he stabbed two members of security staff with a 12-inch prison shank. A plea deal ensured that Haynes would skirt life imprisonment imposed by the state’s “three-strikes” law and, instead, earned only an additional 15 years behind bars, which he completed.
“…The level of violence the Defendant has shown he is capable of, not only within the day the presently charged crimes were committed, but over the course of the last 30 years demonstrates a propensity for violence that conclusively shows that he is a danger to the community,” read a statement by Brent Kling, a senior deputy prosecuting attorney in King County.
Meanwhile, the horrific murder of Ruth Dalton has rocked a community that viewed the late dogwalker as an irreplaceable fixture of northeast Seattle.
“I hope she’s at peace. We all love her, everybody loves her, and I know she’s looking down,” said Dalton’s granddaughter, Melanie Roberts, to KOMO news. “She was feisty. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that she would try to make sure her client’s dogs were safe. She wouldn’t have thought two seconds about herself.”
A neighborhood memorial for Dalton was erected near where she died, where people have left heartwarming notes, pictures, and dog treats. A breast cancer survivor and small business owner, Dalton was remembered as “everybody’s grandma,” who started dog walking to help pay for her granddaughter’s private school tuition.
“Her only goal was to pay for that school, and this community accepted her and brought her in and loved her like their family, their Grandma Ruth too,” Roberts said.
The 62.2% White Seattle, Washington—known for its leftist political leanings and picturesque views of the Puget Sound—has experienced an explosion in violent crime since the 2020 summer of racial reckoning. The unsafe nature of the city has led to the closure of businesses and a stark rise in homicides, auto thefts, and drug-related issues.
In 2023, efforts by the extremist anti-White fringe to “defund the police” led to what has been described as a “murder boom” in Seattle, culminating in a 15-year high for violent crime.
While the State of Washington was once considered much safer than the national average for over four decades, there were 375.6 reported violent crimes for every 100,000 people, according to FBI crime statistics in 2023.
The savage murder of Ruth Dalton is but the latest Black-on-White homicide to occur in an increasingly dangerous American homeland. In May, an elderly White couple living in Meridian, Mississippi, fell victim to a tragic and violent killing hatched by a drug-fueled Black suspect.
In March, a 73-year-old White grandmother was brutally stabbed to death in her own home. The suspect in the case was believed to be Black 24-year-old Angelo Terrell Spencer, who police say proceeded to rape the woman’s daughter before fleeing the scene.
In February, a beloved White grandfather who went to Walmart for beef jerky was fatally shot in the parking lot. Reports state that 37-year-old Shawntece Marie Norton—who is Black—shot 59-year-old Jonathan Mauk after she flew into a rage following a minor fender bender, resulting in a scratch on the Black woman’s car.
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