8th Tacoma Homicide of 2024: Melissa Davis
Housing is difficult in Tacoma. It’s why we have a significant homeless population. It’s also why we have agencies like the Tacoma Housing Authority. They exist to find safe homes for people who need them. Unfortunately, programs like this make little distinction between those who have simply fallen on hard times and those with untreated violent mental illness.
Fifty-two-year-old Melissa Davis was a light in a dark place. She lived at the G Street Apartments on 400 block of North G Street. Neighbors say she was someone they could talk to and confide in. She cared. She had two adult daughters who inherited her caring presence. Neighbors liked talking to Melissa.
Melissa was someone who saw the best in people. Unfortunately, one of her neighbors was a 61-year-old with a long, violent criminal record and serious mental illness. They’d been seeing each other romantically for four months when he started texting her violent threats.
Loud arguing at the G Street apartments late into the night was nothing new. So on May 1, 2024 at around 1:00am when a woman who lived nearby heard a man and woman arguing ending with the woman yelling, “Oh God, No!” she didn’t call the authorities.
Security video shows Melissa walking out to smoke a cigarette at 1:06am. Shortly after, a man later identified as her 61-year-old neighbor is seen pushing her down.
Under police questioning he would tell them that as he walked away from her after shoving her to the ground, she told him he was going to jail for the rest of his life. He responded saying, “I’m not going back.” He then attacked her again hitting and kicking her more than fifty times. This left bloody footprints on her jacket.
At 1:26am, security footage shows a Tacoma Housing Authority security guard briefly stop. The guard would later say he saw a man crouched down rubbing a woman’s back at 12:45am, near the street, and asked if everything was okay. The man later identified as the 61-year-old neighbor said everything was fine. The guard then drove away.
The neighbor took Melissa’s jacket off of her and threw it in a nearby dumpster where police would later find it.
At 2:33am, first responders arrived to a call about a body in the street found Melissa Davis dead with a large pool of blood around her head. She is the eighth Tacoma homicide of 2024.
While officers waited for detectives to show up, they found a chunk of concrete that had blood on it. Upon further investigation they found the blood trail led to Melissa’s body. When asked if he had hit her with it, the neighbor would later say, “I may have.”
The neighbor was soon arrested and charged with her murder. But many unanswered questions remain. One might think it easy to say, “If only someone had complained about violence at that place before.” or “If only management was made aware that this individual was dangerous.” But the problem here is that they were. Both KIRO-7 News and KING-5 News report multiple complaints were submitted to the Tacoma Housing Authority, but the complaints were largely ignored, or worse, tenants who complained often were told they might be kicked out.
Knowing the victim of any homicide is traumatic, but it is all the worse, when that death seems to be all too easily preventable. Here’s hoping Melissa’s family gets justice from everyone responsible for her death.
The comment section is reserved for those who knew Melissa and want to share thoughts or feelings of her.
- Jack Cameron
The watchers knew Ms. Davis from shelter stays. We send our condolences and heartfelt sympathy to her family and friends.