True Crime Society - The Humiston Family Murders

In this blog, we are going to discuss the Humiston Family Murders. Five members of the family were fatally shot, allegedly by the 15 year old son/brother of the family. One of the children in the family survived. This happened in Washington State in October 2024.

As some background into the family:

Mark was born on August 29, 1981 in Marion, Ohio. He moved with his family to Texas in 1990. He attended Colleyville Heritage High School where he played the trombone and was band captain. He was also an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.

Mark obtained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas. After that, he moved to Seattle where he met Sarah at the local church.

Sarah was born on November 17, 1981. Sarah had grown up in the Seattle area. She was known to be a talented musician and loved playing the piano and the flute. She also sang in the jazz choir at Kamiak High School when she attended there. She graduated in 2000 and went on to study at the University of Washington. She was active in the Chi Omega sorority and she was on the rowing team during her time there. Sarah graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Sarah worked for a time at the Swedish Hospital in Seattle as an oncology nurse.

The couple would have five children together. We are going to name three of them. We aren’t going to name the alleged killer (even though he is listed in the obituaries of all of his family members) as he is a juvenile, or the surviving sister. The little girl was 11 at the time of the murders, so we want to help her maintain some privacy.

Their other three children were:

Benjamin who was born on May 29, 2011. He was 13 at the time of the murders. Ben enjoyed being on the robotics team and he loved playing chess. He also had musical interests and played both piano and guitar. Ben was said to have a great sense of humor and was known to be ‘goofy.’ He loved playing outside with his siblings and also loved LEGO.

Joshua was born on May 1, 2015. He was 9 at the time he died. Josh loved jumping on the trampoline, building forts in the yard and playing LEGOs and air hockey. He loved helping his mother in the garden. Josh also loved animals and enjoyed caring for the family pets.

Katherine was born on October 10, 2017, making her 7 at the time she died. Katherine was named after her grandmother and her nickname was Katie Bee. She was said to have a vivacious smile, contagious giggles and the biggest heart. Sarah described Katie as the ‘cherry on top’ for the family. She loved coloring artwork, watching birds and helping in the kitchen.

Sarah paused her career to become a full time homeschooling mother and ‘home manager’.

The family appeared to be quite religious, with many memorials mentioning their beliefs.

Mark was a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ who placed God and his family before all else.

Sarah was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, gifted homeschool teacher to her five children, faithful servant at her local church.

Ben was named in honor of both the patriarch and the faithful prophet of God’s people. He was a devoted young disciple of Jesus Christ, and deeply loved by his family.

Born on May 1, 2015, Josh was named in honor of the fathers of the faith who entered the Promised Land.

Katie loved her Lord Jesus Christ and enjoyed attending her family’s church, Taylor Creek.

The Humiston family lived at 7715 Lake Alice Road SE in Fall City, Washington.

7715 Lake Alice Rd SE is a 4,000 square foot house on a 0.99 acre lot with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. – it last sold on July 08, 2005 for $810,000. Based on Redfin’s Fall City data, we estimate the home’s value is $2,328,532.

Most of the photos of the home have been removed online. There are comments that indicate the family did a $500k remodel in the years before the murders.

The neighborhood was said to be quiet and a great place to raise a family. It was the type of place where nobody locked their doors and the local children could be seen riding their bikes together.

The Humiston children were said to be polite and generally well-adjusted. The family often attended community events and were well known in the neighborhood.

We will call the alleged murderer/oldest child ‘A’.

There is a very detailed article on this case by David Maiolo titled ‘The Humiston Family Murders: A Detailed Account of Events’.

There is an affidavit for the case online which we have chosen to not include on this blog. ‘ A’ is named in the affidavit and a judge has recently asked that he not be publicly identified.

‘A harbored growing resentment towards his parents and siblings. As the eldest of five children, A had responsibilities that he neither asked for nor embraced. While the younger siblings thrived in their homeschool environment, A saw his own academic performance decline steadily over the past year. Instead of addressing his difficulties head-on, A withdrew from his family and spent most of his time in his room, disengaged from their daily activities.’

In the months before the murders, A was neglecting his school work and was spending more time online and playing video games. Sarah also discovered that he was looking at pornography. This discovery resulted in a confrontation between A and both of his parents.

Friends of the family would later say that A felt like the ‘black sheep’ and that he believed he was being unfairly targeted by his parents. It is believed that A started to form a plan to murder his entire family. He was the only one of the children who knew the combination to the locked gun box in the home – that is where Mark’s Glock pistol was kept.

Very early in the morning of Monday, October 21, 2024, A put his plan into place. At around 4.30am, he got the Glock from the lockbox.

At 4.55am, a call was made to 911 from the Humiston home. The caller identified himself as ‘A’ and said ‘he just shot my whole family and committed suicide too.’

A told the dispatcher that Benjamin (13) had killed their family and ‘taken himself out’. A said that he was hiding in a bathroom on the main floor of the home. He also said that Benjamin may have snapped as he had been caught looking at pornography on the night before the murders. A said that he had called 911 around 10-15 minutes after the last shots were fired.

At 5.02am, another call was made to 911. This call came from a neighbor of the Humistons named Bradley Dennise. Bradley said that the 11 year-old Humiston daughter (who we will call B) had arrived at his home and was ringing the doorbell over and over. B told the neighbor that her family had been shot and they were all dead. Bradley said that B had a possible gunshot wound and was bleeding from the neck and the hand. B also told the dispatcher that A was the one who had shot her. B said that she had held her breath and played dead so that A would not shoot her again.

At 4.55am, a call was made to 911 from the Humiston home. The caller identified himself as ‘A’ and said ‘he just shot my whole family and committed suicide too.’

Police believe A tried to stage the scene to make it look like Benjamin was the perpetrator. He put the Glock into Benjamin’s hand.

Investigators would find no gunpowder residue or blood transfer on Benjamin and the angle of his gunshot wounds did not align with them being self-inflicted.

According to the blog we mentioned earlier, the author believes that Sarah heard the gunshots and locked herself in the bathroom. A is alleged to have kicked open the bathroom door and found Sarah hiding near the bathtub.

At the time of the murders, there were questions as to if A would be tried as an adult or not. This article with info about the possible charges is from Living Snoqualmie –

The teen’s next court appearance is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Friday, October 25, at the Clark Child and Family Justice Center in Seattle. Prosecutors are working closely with investigators as they continue the legal process.

In Washington State, cases involving 15-year-olds charged with aggravated first-degree murder are initially filed in juvenile court. However, prosecutors can request a hearing to determine whether the case should be moved to adult court. This decision requires a judge’s approval after hearing arguments from both prosecutors and defense.

If the case remains in juvenile court, the teen can only be held until age 25. If moved to adult court and convicted, the sentence would be 25 years to life, with a presumption of release after 25 years, subject to review by the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board. The teen will remain in juvenile detention and, if still incarcerated at age 25, could be transferred to adult corrections.

After the October hearing, it was determined that another hearing would be held in June 2025 to determine if A should be tried as an adult.

The June hearing did not happen. This info is from Komo News:

A decline hearing date was not scheduled as anticipated during a status conference hearing in a Seattle courtroom Tuesday morning.

The defense told the judge it needs more time to collect evidence and do the analysis.

A decline hearing determines whether a juvenile case should be transferred to the adult criminal court for trial or be handled within the juvenile court system.

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO) is seeking to move the case to adult court and indicated so late last year.

While prosecutors have taken steps to do that, it’s up to the judge to weigh the factors and determine after a decline hearing if the case will be moved to adult court.

During Tuesday’s status conference hearing at the Judge Patricia Clark Children and Family Justice Center, defense attorney Kristen Gestaut told the judge she could not provide a date to set a decline hearing.

“A lot of the information that is needed to analyze these factors is not available to us in this case…So I don’t think that we can provide the court a definitive date today, especially knowing the reliance placed on that if we did, (reliance) to the community, the family, and the court,” Gestaut told the judge. “We’ve really tried to make that happen, but as the state indicated, there is a lot of ongoing investigation.”

King County Superior Court Chief Juvenile Judge Veronica Galvan called the response ‘insufficient’ and pressed Gestaut for an explanation about such outstanding evidence and analysis.

“There are specific factors that were required to analyze for this decline hearing, such as the strength of the state’s evidence that would require us to have those materials in order to fully analyze and prepare for that hearing,” Gestaut said.

“I need you to tell me with specificity what it is that you’re missing that makes it so that you cannot go forward with a decline hearing? I’m not asking to go forward with a trial. I understand that there’s still some investigation, but the factors in a decline hearing are not all tied with some of the things made to be investigated,” the judge told Gestaut. “So I want to make sure that we are not conflating the two.”

Prosecuting Attorney Jason Brookhyser told the judge the prosecution is ready to move forward with a decline hearing.

“If you can’t give me a proposed date that this court feels is realistic, and a year is not realistic, I’d made that very clear for a decline hearing, I will be giving you a date, and I expect you to be ready on that date. In the absence of that, the court will impose one,” Judge Galvan told the defense team.

From the bench, Galvan made it clear that even prior to today’s status conference hearing, her expectation was to schedule a date for the teen’s decline hearing today.

After some apparent confusion over additional evidence being tested, and some back and forth between the prosecution and defense about it, the defense told the judge it needs six more weeks to respond to the court’s request with a brief and a proposal date for a decline hearing.

With that, the judge set July 21 as the deadline for the defense to file a brief, July 28 for a response from the prosecution, and if needed, August 4 for a reply from the defense.

The judge also set September 9 for the next status conference hearing for both parties with the apparent expectation of a decline hearing date coming sometime thereafter, possibly in September.

The teen was in court during Tuesday’s proceeding. He sat next to his attorneys, Kristne Gestaut and Amy Parker. He remained quiet during the hearing, was not asked any questions by the judge, and kept his gaze towards the judge’s bench during the proceeding. The court has ordered that he not be identified. He is being held in juvenile detention.

In August 2025, we learned more about what the defense team are alleging in this case:

New court documents from the defense shed light on the family dynamic in the Humiston household and the alleged abuse the children endured.

The defense claims the Humiston family was paranoid of the government and medical professionals, especially related to the COVID-19 vaccine. The 15-year-old and his siblings were also homeschooled.

“A common theme that has been expressed amongst extended family, neighbors, and those who knew the Humistons is that the children were isolated from the outside world and did not engage socially with many peers – only a select few families that went to their church and were friends of their family,” court documents say.

“Furthermore, initial reports indicate the home was abusive, tightly controlled, and dominated by extreme religious beliefs.”

The documents also allege that the children were given access to firearms and raised under a “rigid, militant survivalist ideology.”

The children’s maternal grandmother allegedly reported that her daughter, the 15-year-old’s mother, “was abusive and demeaning to the children.” She allegedly told law enforcement she threatened to report her daughter if the abuse did not stop, court documents say.

The defense stated the family’s isolation from traditional schools, doctors, and the outside community, has made uncovering information about them “particularly challenging and time consuming.”

The defense said of the 15-year-old, “everyone we have spoken with describe him as kind, respectful, and deeply devoted to his family.”

The defense has identified 98 witnesses they feel are necessary to interview before the decline hearing. As of July 21, they have interviewed 22 of them. The defense is pushing for the decline hearing to be in October 2026.

“We anticipate that the remaining witness interviews can be completed by April 2026, with forensic and medical evaluations completed by August 2026. We expect to be fully prepared for the decline hearing by October 2026.”

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