Pierce County prosecutor: No death penalty in Graham double slaying case

TACOMA — Pierce County Prosecutor Gerald Horne says he will not seek the death penalty against ex-convict Daniel Tavares Jr., who is charged with two counts of aggravated murder for the November slayings of a young Graham couple.

Horne said during a news conference in Tacoma this afternoon that Tavares has agreed to plead guilty to the charges, which means he faces life in prison without possibility of release for the slaying of Brian and Beverly Mauck. Tavares also has agreed to waive all appeals, Horne said.

Relatives of the couple said they were relieved with Horne's decision, despite some dissension among family members. The decision means they won't have to look at Tavares nor hear his name again and can go on to remembering their loved ones, they said.

"They will never be forgotten," said Jennifer Heilbrun, Brian Mauck's sister. "This will give us the chance to live the way they would've wanted us to: In the moment and happy."

Although Pierce County prosecutors have convicted two of the eight people currently on Washington state's death row, Horne said it would've been unlikely that Tavares would've faced execution if he had been convicted of aggravated murder.

In Washington state, a conviction for aggravated murder is punishable only by death or life in prison without release.

Tavares, 41, was charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with the Nov. 17 slayings of the Maucks, who lived a few houses down from him.

Tavares had been erroneously released one year early from a maximum security Massachusetts prison about five months before the Maucks' murder where he had been serving a 16-year term for a manslaughter conviction in the 1991 stabbing death of his mother. He was supposed to be released to the Florida Department of Corrections for an outstanding charge, but instead he wound up living in a trailer in Graham with a new wife whom he met through a prison pen-pals Web site.

On the morning of Nov. 17, Tavares allegedly went to the Maucks' home around 7 a.m. to collect $50 he believed was owed him for a tattoo he was putting on Mauck's back, according to relatives of the victims. Police said they believe Tavares could have killed the couple because he was insulted that Mauck didn't like the tattoo and didn't want to pay for it.

Charging papers say Tavares pulled out a. .22-caliber handgun and shot Mauck in the face, using a hand towel to muffle the sound. He then allegedly also shot Mauck in the back of the head, according to charging papers.

Prosecutors said Beverly Mauck, 28, witnessed her husband's death and was shot when she tried to flee.

Investigators found bloody shoe prints on the floor and a bloody palm print on a doorjamb. Detectives seized a pair of shoes from Tavares with treads that matched those that left the bloody impressions, charging papers said.

Tavares' wife, Jennifer Tavares, 37, was charged with one misdemeanor count of rendering criminal assistance for lying to authorities to protect her husband, prosecutors said.

Last year, Horne agreed to take the death penalty off the table for Terapon Dang Adhahn in exchange for information that led investigators to the body of 12-year-old Zina Linnik, who was abducted from her Tacoma home on July 4.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com