Nearly 20 years later, Thanksgiving Day double killing unsolved. Tacoma police seek help

Almost 20 years have passed since a family’s Thanksgiving gathering in Tacoma was shattered by an unknown gunman’s bullets, killing a 5-year-old boy and a young woman.

The cold case has left Tacoma Police Department with little to follow up on. Leads have fizzled, lab testing of evidence has proved unfruitful, and a detective who investigated the shooting for years has since retired. Another homicide detective, Julie Dier, took over the case about a month ago, and she’s certain there are people who know what happened the night of Nov. 28, 2002.

It was about 10 p.m. when police believe one gunman walked up to a basement window of a split-level home in the 1000 block of South 75th Street and opened fire into a room where about eight people were hanging out. Two people were injured, and Jeremy Britt-Bayinthavong and Kimberly Riley, 19, were killed.

“There’s a lot of people that know what happened,” Dier said during a news conference Thursday morning. “It’s a matter of having someone come forth and tell us something that we will be able to follow up on and bring it to a close.”

Dier said police believe the shooting was gang related. The home was targeted in a drive-by about two years before the deadly attack, and she said a family member who was in the house at the time had former gang ties. It appeared that it had been some time since that person was involved in gang activities, police said, and he had been trying to make a change in his life in the years before.

Information about that person’s gang involvement came up “almost immediately” when detectives started interviewing everyone in the house, but police previously had not made that motive public, according to reporting from The News Tribune and other media outlets.

Police have little suspect information. Dier said a male was seen leaving the area wearing a light-colored bulky jacket with black, straight hair. A 1970s to 1980s full-sized Ford pickup with a light-colored canopy was spotted speeding away with its headlights turned off. It was dark out and a foggy night, and Dier said that made it difficult for witnesses to get a good look.

The detective who long worked the case for Tacoma police spoke with the victim’s families each year, police said. According to archive stories from The News Tribune, Britt-Bayinthavong’s grandfather sold the home shortly after the shooting and was living in Federal Way in 2008. Riley’s family was from Volcano, Hawaii. Dier said she has spoken with both families, and it seemed to bring up memories they don’t want to think about.

The case is a difficult one for police to talk about too. A veteran of nearly 13 years, Dier wasn’t with the department when the shooting occurred, but police spokesperson Wendy Haddow said she and her partner at the time were the first on the scene. She said she still recalls seeing Britt-Bayinthavong’s father holding his son on the front lawn when she arrived.

It’s those horrific facts that keep police hoping that someone will decide to come forward after all this time. Dier said the victims deserve to be alive.

“Maybe somebody since then has had children and thinks about it a little bit differently,” Dier said. “And maybe this will be the wake up call that they need to bring forth the information.”

Anyone with information was asked to contact Crime Stoppers or call anonymously at 253-591-5959.