Accused killer: "I'm sorry they're gone"

Within hours of learning he could face the death penalty if he's found guilty of killing three generations of the same family on Christmas Eve, Joseph McEnroe said Friday he has new respect for life.

"You never really realize what life is worth until something like this happens," he said.

During a 15-minute interview at the King County Jail, McEnroe said he's sorry six members of the Anderson family are dead and that he regretted cutting contact with his own family.

Dressed in a white jumpsuit reserved for "ultra-security" inmates, McEnroe wouldn't talk about what happened Christmas Eve at a rural home near Carnation. There, police and prosecutors allege, he and his girlfriend, Michele Anderson, methodically shot Anderson's parents and brother, the brother's wife and their two young children.

"I'm sorry that they're gone. They were my family, too, you know?" McEnroe, 29, said of the victims. "I hope wherever they're at, they're at peace. That's all I'm going to say about them."

McEnroe and Anderson each were charged earlier Friday with six counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the Anderson family slayings.

With his hands chained to his waist, McEnroe had to hunch and sit sideways to talk through a phone in the visiting booth, where a thick window separates inmates and visitors. Tall and slim with a goatee and shoulder-length dark hair, McEnroe spoke softly. At times, his eyes appeared misty.

McEnroe said jail officials have placed him on suicide watch: "I was having a very hard time, but no matter how this turns out, I'm going to try and hold on... I decided I'm going to try and stay alive."

He asked about his family — his mother and siblings in Minneapolis and an aunt and cousins in California. McEnroe stopped talking to them five years ago after a financial dispute with his mother.

"I never really realized how much I need my family. God, how did I ever get in this situation, you know?" he said. "Tell them I love them, all of them."

The man who is accused of ending the Christmas Eve killings by shooting 3- and 5-year-old children in the head asked about a cousin in California who was "always like my big sister." Told she now has a 5-year-old daughter, he said, "I hope she's safe."

"This whole thing has made me realize how much I miss them," he said of his family. "It's easy enough to think they don't like you or don't care about you, but I wish to God I got in touch with them before this.

"I would've even been able to visit them. I guess that's not going to happen now."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com