Teen charged in Evergreen homicide

Kenton Weimer, the 18-year-old Evergreen man who was injured in the same shotgun incident that killed Tarisia Caron Tuesday morning, was arrested Friday in a Seattle hospital.

He is charged with deliberate homicide for causing the May 1 death of Caron, 18, of Evergreen.

Weimer remains in Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He was flown there Tuesday morning after authorities found him next to Caron's body in the yard of the home on Shady Lane that he shares with his father, Rick Weimer, and Vicki Gunderson. They live in the Meadow Manor Mobile Home Park.

Caron was killed by a shotgun blast to her head. Weimer apparently shot himself in the head with the same 12-gauge shotgun, but ended up with serious injuries to his jaw and lower part of his face.

He was listed in serious condition in the hospital's intensive care unit for the first couple days. But a Harborview spokeswoman said Weimer had been moved out of the intensive care unit and was in satisfactory condition Friday afternoon.

The Flathead County Sheriff's Major Case Unit investigated the double shooting this week as a homicide and attempted suicide.

Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan said Weimer was arrested at the hospital Friday on a felony warrant out of Washington state for being a fugitive from justice. That charge stems from the deliberate homicide warrant that Flathead County holds for him. Although he was arrested, he will remain in Harborview for necessary medical treatment before being transferred to Flathead County.

Because the Flathead County Sheriff's Office is responsible for medical needs of its prisoners, the office will be responsible for Weimer's medical bills from Friday forward.

"Sheriff Meehan knows those medical bills will be expensive," a press release reported late Friday afternoon. "Sheriff Meehan's first priority is for the safety of the public, and he feels that this homicide suspect must be incarcerated at this time, to insure the public's safety."

The shooting happened just before 4:17 a.m. Tuesday. Another Meadow Manor resident phoned 911 to report hearing two gunshots, but could not positively identify where they originated.

Deputies responded but could not find anything before leaving the scene about 10 minutes later.

At 4:49 a.m. dispatchers received a second call from someone unable to speak, who turned out to be Weimer. By using a system of tapping to answer the dispatcher's questions, he directed emergency responders to the home.

The two young people, who Caron's mother said had been dating off-and-on for the past six months, reportedly had argued loudly enough to waken Gunderson sometime around 3 a.m. Authorities have not released results of their investigation, so it is uncertain whether that argument had any connection with the shooting.

Both Weimer and Caron reportedly logged on to the MySpace.com profiles registered under their names just hours earlier. One of the things detectives confiscated at the home was a computer. A neighbor also saw them taking a shotgun as evidence Tuesday morning.