18-year-old charged with Juneau girl’s death in Seattle gunfire

An 18-year-old Seattle-area man has been charged with first degree murder in connection with the January 3rd shooting death of Ashton Reyes, of Juneau.

Jacob Mommer was charged Thursday morning in King County Superior Court, where his bail was set at $1-million. He was arrested on Tuesday in Maple Valley, south of Seattle.

Charging documents indicate the shooting was drug-related.

Ian Goodhew is Deputy Chief of Staff for the King County Prosecutor’s office.

“The deceased victim, Ashton Reyes, and a man she was with, arranged to meet Mommer and another individual to conduct a drug transaction,” he says, “and during the course of the drug transaction Mommer and the other individual began an attempt to rob Reyes and the man with her of the drugs. Gunshots erupted and at the end of it, Miss Reyes was dead, and Mr. Mommer and the other suspect had fled the scene.”

Mommer also has been charged with first and second degree robbery of items stolen from Reyes’ vehicle.

Goodhew says Mommer will be arraigned March 1st, two days after his 19th birthday. He says Mommer has no prior criminal history.

According to charging documents, at about 10 p.m. on Jan. 3rd the 22-year-old Juneau girl was found sprawled over the front seat of her car in a Subway parking lot, where Seattle police were responding to calls of shots being fired in the Rainier Beach area. As KTOO previously reported, Reyes was rushed to Harborview Medical Center, where she died about 75 minutes later of a gunshot wound to the torso.

The man she was with, identified in the documents as J.R., was found in a parking lot across the street with a bullet wound to his buttocks. In interviews with police, he said the pair planned to sell an ounce of marijuana to Mommer and another man. While J.R. told police his cellphone would have Mommer’s number, both J.R.’s and Reyes’ phones were taken from the vehicle and never recovered.

Police were able to obtain phone logs for J.R.’s number, and traced Mommer’s number to numerous listings on Craigslist for sales of marijuana, cellphones, and sports memorabilia. Seattle police served a warrant to Craigslist, identified the IP address and traced it to the Internet service provider for Mommer’s Maple Valley residence.

Seattle Detective Mark Jamieson says police are still searching for another suspect in the robbery and shooting.

According to relatives, Reyes had completed a dental assistant program in Seattle and was working as an intern in a Seattle-area dentist’s office.

She was a 2008 graduate of Juneau’s Yaakoosge’ Daakahidi Alternative High School, and the daughter of Rick Reyes of Juneau and Terri Reyes of Oregon.

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