By Scott Gutierrez
THe Seattle Post-Intelligencer
ARLINGTON, Va. — Police are investigating whether a former Seattle-area resident who shot a police officer and killed himself late Tuesday in Arlington County, Va., also killed his wife and left her body in a closet.
Investigators were piecing the case together Wednesday surrounding Robert K. Hui, 22, formerly of Mercer Island, who shot himself after wounding one of two officers who had stopped him for erratic driving on Interstate 395 in Alexandria, Va.
After shooting the officer, Hui drove his Lexus sport utility vehicle farther down the freeway and stopped on the shoulder, where police found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Virginia authorities reported.
A bullet-resistant vest saved the officer, Kyle Russell, 26, who was shot in the chest. He is expected to make a full recovery, according to WRC-TV.
After the shooting, police descended on Hui’s apartment in Arlington, to which he and his wife, Sarah Tredop, 19, recently moved from the Seattle area. They discovered that Tredop had been shot multiple times. It was unclear how long she had been dead.
“We have to investigate her death as a completely separate death scene, even though logically they’re linked, " Arlington County Detective Crystal Nosal said Wednesday.
Nosal had no information to release Wednesday about a possible motive, she said.
Hui previously lived on Mercer Island and has family in the Seattle area. His parents could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
A source familiar with the case said Hui served in the Army, although it was unclear in which unit or whether he was still on active duty.
Tredop also lived on Mercer Island and graduated from Mercer Island High School in 2007, according to her profile on MySpace.com.
Her Web site says she was born in Germany and lived there for nine years before moving to Brazil and then to Seattle. In one 2005 posting, apparently before being married, she said she wasn’t a U.S. citizen.
“I have the sweetest husband ever,” she wrote in a current description of herself.
Neighbors of the couple in Arlington told local news crews that the couple recently moved in. Police were called to their apartment last month for a domestic dispute.
Citing a search warrant affidavit, The Washington Post reported Wednesday that police learned from that episode that Hui had several firearms.
After Hui was pulled over about 8 p.m. Tuesday, two officers approached his vehicle and asked if he was OK. Hui, who looked as though he’d just been in a fight, shot the officer standing on the passenger side.
Authorities think the officers were trying to arrest him in his wife’s slaying, according to WRC-TV.
Court records in Washington state showed no previous history of domestic violence arrests involving the couple.
Copyright 2008 The Seattle Post-Intelligencer