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Crime & Safety

Police Investigate Death of Sammamish Man

The adult children of a man who died at a Kirkland hospice facility recently fear that his death may not have been entirely natural and suspect his widow.

An attorney representing the adult children of a Sammamish man who recently died contacted city police Aug. 18 because they suspect that their father’s widow may have contributed to his death, either by neglect or intent.

According to the attorney, whose name was blacked out in the police report, the children suspect that their 65-year-old father, who died at in Kirkland, may have been poisoned. There was no elaboration in the report.

All of the names were blacked out in the report, which gives the attorney’s following account:

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The man’s children wanted the King County Sheriff’s Office to help contact the King County Medical Examiner to request an autopsy. Their father was scheduled to be cremated the evening of Aug. 18, which meant that the medical examiner had to act quickly.

The children said that they had always had a close relationship with their father. Although they lived in Las Vegas, they talked with him weekly and regularly communicated through email, according to the attorney.

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Following his marriage three years ago to a woman who claimed to have never been married, the woman started to isolate her husband from his family, according to the report. The children believed their father, who was still working full time at Microsoft, to be completely competent and didn’t understand why he would allow himself to be isolated.

The man’s son attempted to visit him at Christmas but was turned away from his Sammamish home, the attorney said in the report. The father later met secretly with the son at a Starbucks. When his wife found out about the visit, she threatened divorce, the police report said.

In July, the children learned that their father was hospitalized and on renal dialysis. At the same time, his wife gave her consent for heart surgery to be performed on her husband. Earlier that year, his brother had died during similar surgery due to a blood clotting condition the brothers shared, the report said. When the doctor was told of this condition, he immediately canceled the surgery. This apparently upset the man’s wife. It was at this time that the children contacted an attorney, the police report said.

According to the attorney, the man’s children were turned away at the hospital when they tried to visit. He was then moved to Life Care Center in Kirkland. When the children tried to contact their father’s wife, she wouldn’t accept their phone calls or tell them where their father was. Later, an employee in the medical records department told them where he had been admitted. When the children went there to see him, they discovered that he had been moved home. Two days later, the man contacted his son and asked that they leave him and his wife alone.

According to the attorney, on Aug. 15 the man’s children learned from one of their father’s co-workers that he had died four days earlier. His wife wouldn’t speak to the children, and the attorney was sent to get information on his death and funeral services. The widow informed the attorney that he had died at Evergreen Hospice in Kirkland and that there would be no service because her husband did not want one. She added that her husband hated his children.

The man’s children did some research on the Internet and found records indicating their father’s widow had been married five times. The children also found death records for several of the people named in the marriage records but could not confirm if they were the same people. The children also said that their father’s previous wife told them that he had a $1 million life insurance policy.

According to police, an investigator with the King County Medical Examiner is familiar with the allegations but says that the father was suffering from serious medical issues, including renal vein blockage. An autopsy was performed and cause and manner of death are pending toxicology results.

The case has been forwarded to a detective.

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