Video shows plea to keep accused killer in custody 6 days before attack
SEATTLE -- The man charged with murder for the brutal July 19 attack on two Seattle women already had a troubled past. But a new video obtained by the Stranger newspaper shows why that past wasn't enough to convince a judge to lock him up just days before the deadly stabbings.
Isiah Kalebu, 23, is accused of raping and torturing two women in their South Park home in the middle of the night. Teresa Butz didn't survive the attack.
When Kalebu showed up shackled in court last week facing murder charges, it wasn't his first rendezvous with a judge.
On July 13, just six days before the fatal attack, Kalebu was in a King County Superior courtroom, standing silent in a white collared shirt and sweater. It was a bail hearing for when his mother had said Kalebu threatened to kill her.
King County prosecutor Zac Hostetter said Kalebu had been questioned in a deadly arson investigation, spent time in a mental facility and asked the judge to take Kalebu into custody and double the bail to $50,000.
"The court released Kalebu on some strict instructions to follow the recommendations of his treatment provider and to take all of his medications -- I don't have any indications now that he has violated that in any way," Hostetter told the judge. "But the concern to the state is the pending law violation that he is, at the very least unstable in the sense that he is not abiding by his conditions."
The plea to jail Kalebu lasted less than three minutes.
"I'm going to deny your request without prejudice at this time, Mr. Hostetter," said Judge Brian Gain. "I'm satisfied that he has appeared, although I am concerned about all of this. So, I'm going to set the review in approximately three weeks and I'd like an update from his mental health provider."
But by the time three weeks showed up, a woman was dead, and the bail for the man who walked out of court that day was set at $10 million.
Prosecutors will now decide if they will seek the death penalty.
Kalebu is also a person of interest in a suspicious fire that killed two people in Pierce County on July 9. Kalebu was living in the home, and his aunt died in the fire.
Isiah Kalebu, 23, is accused of raping and torturing two women in their South Park home in the middle of the night. Teresa Butz didn't survive the attack.
When Kalebu showed up shackled in court last week facing murder charges, it wasn't his first rendezvous with a judge.
On July 13, just six days before the fatal attack, Kalebu was in a King County Superior courtroom, standing silent in a white collared shirt and sweater. It was a bail hearing for when his mother had said Kalebu threatened to kill her.
King County prosecutor Zac Hostetter said Kalebu had been questioned in a deadly arson investigation, spent time in a mental facility and asked the judge to take Kalebu into custody and double the bail to $50,000.
"The court released Kalebu on some strict instructions to follow the recommendations of his treatment provider and to take all of his medications -- I don't have any indications now that he has violated that in any way," Hostetter told the judge. "But the concern to the state is the pending law violation that he is, at the very least unstable in the sense that he is not abiding by his conditions."
The plea to jail Kalebu lasted less than three minutes.
"I'm going to deny your request without prejudice at this time, Mr. Hostetter," said Judge Brian Gain. "I'm satisfied that he has appeared, although I am concerned about all of this. So, I'm going to set the review in approximately three weeks and I'd like an update from his mental health provider."
But by the time three weeks showed up, a woman was dead, and the bail for the man who walked out of court that day was set at $10 million.
Prosecutors will now decide if they will seek the death penalty.
Kalebu is also a person of interest in a suspicious fire that killed two people in Pierce County on July 9. Kalebu was living in the home, and his aunt died in the fire.
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