DNA leads police to arrest in 1984 Rainier Valley killing

Seattle police say they have solved the 25-year-old cold-case killing of a 70-year-old Rainier Valley woman, and have arrested and booked into jail a felon who used to be the woman's neighbor.

Detectives booked a 50-year-old robber into the King County Jail for investigation of murder and say they will seek a first-degree murder charge next week.

Nora Gracey was found Aug. 12, 1984, in her bed, with blood surrounding her head. The widow was a retired seamstress.

The case went cold in the mid-1980s but was reviewed by detectives over the years. Recent technological advances in comparing DNA samples enabled police to tie the 50-year-old suspect to the crime, said Seattle police Detective Mike Ciesynski.

The Seattle Times is not naming the suspect because he has yet to be charged.

The man had been questioned before, Ciesynski said, and was arrested Friday after he showed up at police headquarters for a meeting with detectives to discuss the case. Shortly after he arrived, police told him they had linked his DNA with evidence at the crime scene, Ciesynski said.

"I have been dealing with him for a while, and then I had him come to my office to go over a statement I had taken from him over the phone," Ciesynski said.

When Gracey was slain, the man was 24 years old and living next door with his mother, who was a friend of the victim, the detective said.

The man's mother took care of Gracey and was always sweet to the woman and her family, said Linda Bagley, Gracey's daughter-in-law.

Gracey's son in Spokane had tried repeatedly to get his mother to move out of Rainier Valley — where her late husband had purchased a house — because of rising crime rates, but she refused.

Gilbert Bagley, Gracey's son, told The Seattle Times in 1984 that his mother's house had been hit by burglars and that he worried about her safety. He said Gracey refused to leave Seattle for Spokane because she wanted to stay close to her other son, a military veteran who was plagued by injuries, the news article said.

That son, Terry, is still alive and lives at a hotel near Pioneer Square, police said.

Sandra Bagley, the slain woman's granddaughter, said she was shocked when Ciesynski called to tell her about the arrest.

"It means quite a bit. I kind of wish it was resolved a little sooner because my dad had passed away in April," said Bagley, who lives in Granger, near Yakima. "We were totally thinking it was drug related, because she lived in a bad neighborhood. We kept trying to get her to go to Spokane or move out somewhere to get out of that neighborhood."

Bagley said her family hadn't talked to Seattle police since shortly after the slaying and assumed the case would go unsolved.

"To find out it was her own neighbor, that was sickening," Bagley said.

Gracey was found dead inside her house in the 7900 block of 46th Avenue South on Aug. 12, 1984, by neighbors who entered the home after she failed to answer phone calls.

Gracey had several friends in the neighborhood, including another widow with whom she spent hours each day. The two women went grocery shopping together and loved to watch television.

Bagley, who was 10 when her grandmother died, said the slaying was hard on her parents.

"It was undescribable for my dad. He didn't talk about the death," Bagley said, adding that after the slaying her family shared only good memories about Gracey.

"I just loved her to death," she said. "It was really good to go over there and see her; we always played games. We did a lot of things in Seattle; we went on the ferries; we went down to the docks and see Seattle and stuff."

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com