Third Tacoma Homicide of 2011 - Bridget 'Ginny' Thomas
Saturday morning at about 9:30a.m., someone walked up to a row of apartments on Tacoma’s hilltop on South 8th Street. Forty-nine year old, Bridget ‘Ginny’ Thomas had only lived in the apartment for a few months, but she’d been a resident of Tacoma for the last twenty-five years. Once inside, the person found Ginny dead. Police responded and determined that the death was likely a homicide.
Ginny had many friends and was a great grandmother. From all appearances, Ginny was another resident of Tacoma who deserved a long life and instead had it cut short. Details on this case are fairly vague right now so I’ll probably post more about this later.
Tacoma’s Hilltop was once the most crime-filled area in the city. In the violent days of the early 90s, Hilltop was so well known, that when I was visiting New Zealand, I told a guy I was from Tacoma and he said, “That’s where Hilltop is, right? I saw that last week on Cops.”
In the last few years, Tacoma’s Hilltop has changed dramatically with the help of the community and local small businesses. Unfortunately in recent months, the presence of gangs and drug dealers are becoming more and more common. It’s far too early to say if any of these recent changes in Ginny Thomas’ neighborhood had anything to do with her death. What’s clear is the Thomas was one of the people who made Hilltop better, not worse. My thoughts go out to her friends and family and to the police in the hopes they quickly find her killer.
I’ll post more about this when and if there’s more to say. As always, feel free to comment, especially if you knew Ginny.
- Jack Cameron
