85-year-old American woman who shot Kenyan sisters charged

An 85-year-old American woman has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and assault in the double shooting of her roommates last month at a Federal Way home.

Beverly Jenne, while using a walker and flanked by her legal team, entered the plea at the King County Superior Court where she was arraigned.

Officers probing the matter said they were alerted to the scene of crime by a call to 911 in which a woman said she had been shot at her home in 2000 block of SW 306th Lane.

When officers got to the scene, they found two women in their 30s who had been shot.

One of them, Janet Oyuga, succumbed to her injuries while her sister Angela Otieno was rushed to the Harborview Medical Center in critical condition.

Police officers told the court that they took the suspect to a local hospital after they arrested her while trying to strangle herself with an electric cord.

The suspect previously owned the home but it had since gone into foreclosure and was handed to the two Kenyan sisters on a lease-to-own agreement by its new owner.

The agreement however allowed the suspect to live in the premises until she found another place of residence.

During the investigations, detectives found a note in the suspect’s gun holster saying the murder victim was not a “nice person.”

On the same note, the suspect directed officers to the copy of her last will and also requested for her own cemetery plot.

Officers are also probing the December 30, 2019 incident in which the home where the shootings took place was destroyed by fire.

Jenne’s attorneys, Mark Middaugh and Ramona Brandes, released a statement after Tuesday’s court hearing saying:

“The events of the last several weeks have been tragic. We send our condolences to Ms. Oyuga’s family, and our best wishes for a speedy recovery to Ms. Atieno. We are deeply concerned that the home was so quickly destroyed by fire. We urge a swift and transparent investigation into the cause of the blaze. We look forward to sharing Ms. Jenne‘s story at the appropriate time and place.”