Port Angeles police have arrested a woman in relation to a homicide investigation into the death of a former Port Alberni man killed in the United States in March.
Port Alberni-born George Cecil David, 65, was found dead about 12:45 p.m. March 28 inside an apartment in Port Angeles, Washington.
Port Angeles police have been investigating ever since, with four detectives assigned to the case.
On Monday, Port Angeles police said on April 19, detectives arrested Tina Marie Alcorn, 45, in Mount Vernon, “pursuant to an Arkansas Board of Parole warrant as a conditional release violator.”
“The continued investigation into the death of George David had led detectives to believe that Alcorn is a suspect in this case,” police said.
“The investigation has also shown that she leads a transient lifestyle.”
Alcorn appeared in court on April 20 and 21 and remains in custody in Clallam County Jail pending extradition to Arkansas on her felony parole warrant, police said.
“The investigation is ongoing and awaiting results from the crime scene analysis and other crime lab results,” police said.
Detectives are working with Clallam County prosecutor Mark Nichols “to provide the prosecutor with the best and most complete information possible for their charging decision,” police said.
Earlier Nichols had invoked jurisdiction in his capacity as coroner and an autopsy of David was performed.
"At this point in time, we believe the manner of death to be homicide; the cause to be blunt-force trauma to the head,” he told the Times Colonist in a phone interview on April 8.
Police said Monday they will not release further information as the investigation continues.
David was born in August 1950, the youngest of 14 children.
The family moved to Arizona when David was eight years old — “an entirely different world from the rainforests and beaches of Vancouver Island,” his niece, Bonnie David, said in her eulogy.
The remainder of his upbringing was in the Seattle area and Blake Island in Puget Sound, after which he settled in Neah Bay, about 115 kilometres west of Port Angeles, where his daughter Maria Elizabeth was raised.
His family was spread across the Nuu-chah-nulth and Makah First Nations. He spent time in Port Alberni but always returned to Neah Bay.
David was an accomplished artist and master carver, creating masks, head-dresses, prints, fine jewelry, totem poles and puppets.
“These are in collections all over the world,” Bonnie David said. He was recently in Vancouver selling his work, she said.
David was officially a grandfather to two children, but was called “Grampa” by dozens, his niece said at his memorial.
