4 arrested in Seattle stun-gun attacks

A teenage girl, two young women and a man have been arrested in connection with violent stun-gun attacks on women in North Seattle last month.

The attacks between May 17 and 24 targeted women who were alone, often busy taking items out of their car, police said.

One victim reported being shocked with a stun gun, while three others reported hearing what sounded like the clicking of stun gun but were not stunned, police said.

On Wednesday, police announced they had arrested four people. The teenage suspect, Georgetta Jones, 17, was charged that same day as an adult with two counts of first-degree robbery and one count of possession of a stolen vehicle. She was arrested Friday.

Charges against the two women, 21 and 25, are pending, according to the King County Prosecutor's Office. Jones and the two women are in jail.

"Oh that's good news. I am so glad to hear that," said Pauline Soderquist, of Spokane, who police say was attacked with a stun gun May 22 in front of her grandson's house on Lakeside Avenue Northeast.

Jones told police that she was present during two of the robberies, but claimed she was only the getaway driver, according to charging papers.

She blamed the attacks on the 25-year-old woman, who was arrested by Seattle police Wednesday along with the other woman.

King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Dana Cashman said in charging paperwork that Jones has no criminal history. Cashman is requesting the teen be held on $250,000 bail.

"These crimes were bold and brazen in that these attacks were largely during the day when people would feel it was safe to engage in daily tasks... ," Cashman wrote in charging papers.

The fourth suspect, a 22-year-old man, was arrested Friday for investigation of robbery, according to court paperwork. He was released from the King County Jail on Wednesday while police investigate his alleged role in the robberies.

When police confronted him outside his Greenwood apartment last week, he said Jones and the other two women were behind the stun-gun attacks, according to charging paperwork filed in Jones' case.

The man told police the three suspects brought wallets and other stolen items to his apartment to look through them.

The man is dating one of the women suspects, court paperwork said.

The first attack occurred just before 2 p.m. May 17. According to a Seattle police report, a 61-year-old woman was unloading her car in the parking garage of her apartment building in the 4200 block of Phinney Avenue North when a stun gun was pressed against her neck by a man and she felt a jolt of electricity.

She was pushed into her open trunk, and her purse was stolen.

The second attack happened just before 1 p.m. May 19 when a 54-year-old woman was assaulted as she pulled bags from her car in her driveway in the 9300 block of 22nd Avenue Northwest, according to another police report.

The woman reported hearing "the clicking noises that come from stun guns but she did not see it and did not feel a jolt, the report says.

The assailants scooped up the woman's purse and ran to a waiting gray vehicle driven by a woman, which sped off south along 22nd Avenue Northwest.

Just past noon the next day, a third woman was robbed outside her home in the 700 block of North 102nd Street as she was removing bags from the trunk of her car.

The 74-year-old victim told police she was approached from behind by a man and a woman and she, too, felt a stun gun pressed against her neck and heard clicking noises, but wasn't jolted, the report says.

The female assailant grabbed the woman's purse, and both robbers got into a silver sedan waiting nearby, the report says.

The vehicle, which had been reported stolen, was later found in a church parking lot in the 13200 block of Palatine Avenue North, the report says.

The fourth attack occurred about 6 p.m. May 22 when Soderquist was robbed of her purse in front of her grandson's house in the 11200 block of Lakeside Avenue Northeast.

She had just gotten out of her car and locked her door, she said, when a car drove by slowly.

"It stopped about 25 to 50 feet from me and a young man ... got out and walked toward me," she said. "Suddenly, he lunged, grabbed my purse and said, 'I'll take that,' " she said. "I tried to hold onto my purse until I realized that was not going to help."

Soderquist said she fell to the ground, but is not sure if a stun gun was used. She reported hearing a sound similar to a stun gun clicking, police said.

"Just before I went down, I heard what sounded like people throwing little pebbles on the pavement, and I thought that was a strange sound, but I don't know if I was stunned or not," she said Wednesday.

Two days later, a woman in her late 60s was walking in the 400 block of Northeast 85th Street around 2:30 p.m. when she was approached by a young man wearing a dark heavy jacket with the hood up.

The woman, who uses a cane, said the man grabbed her purse, then ran to a red car parked on Fourth Avenue Northeast and jumped in before it sped off.

In the attacks, descriptions of the robbers differed from a man and a woman, to two men.

Seattle police have also linked the three females with the theft of a car from outside an LA Fitness health club on Aurora Avenue North on May 13, according to court paperwork.

Seattle Times news researchers Miyoko Wolf and David Turim contributed to this report, which includes information from Times archives.

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