A woman in Seattle, Washington pleaded not guilty on November 21 after she was hit with a first-degree murder charge following the brutal death of her father in their home shortly after Donald Trump’s election victory.
Corey Lizette Burke was charged by King County prosecutors over an argument about leaving the lights on in the house that allegedly escalated into fatal violence and death for 67-year-old Timothy Burke on election night, November 5.
According to charging documents seen by Seattle CBS affiliate KIRO, Corey allegedly decided she “needed to do something” about her father after they argued over his insistence in leaving the lights on that night, adding that she felt “overwhelmed” after Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris.
The suspect also reportedly told police, per the court documents, that the murder of her father was meant to “help people change their attachment to their parents,” and “had to happen today,” referring to election day.
The suspect purportedly went upstairs to get an ice climbing “pickaxe” before going down into the basement where her father was and attacking him with the blunt and sharp ends, per the court filings. She also allegedly detailed for officers how she attacked her father … once she finally began to cooperate with them.
Initially, according to NBC affiliate KING, Corey wouldn’t even allow police into the house after neighbors called to report that she was purportedly smashing the windows of her home out.
Responding officers reported finding the suspect outside the house with blood on her face and appearing visibly disoriented, but “clapping … because she was so happy,” as detailed per charging documents by The New York Post.
The suspect was not responsive to questions, saying only that she was “sick” and had not eaten. She also initially refused police entry into the house, insisting there was no one else home. She ultimately said she was breaking the windows “as an act of liberation.”
KIRO reports Corey was taken to a hospital upon her request for evaluation, with officers concerned she was “having a mental health crisis,” per the charging documents.
It was after neighbors expressed concern about her father to officers on the scene that they conducted a welfare check of the home and found both the victim in the basement and the bloody axe that killed him in the upstairs living room..
According to the affidavit, Corey later told police she “freaked out” during the altercation, feeling overwhelmed by her relationship with her father, which she told authorities had no strong “boundaries.”
At one point, she reportedly whispered to one officer, “I killed him.”
After the election night argument with her father, per prosecutors, Corey “knew that she could not convince him to keep the lights off, so she went upstairs retrieved an ice axe and tripped her father, strangled him with the axe and her hands, and bit him and hit him several times in the head and side with the blunt and sharp ends of the ice axe,” leaving him with puncture wounds deep enough to penetrate his ribs and lungs.
Investigators also reported finding evidence of blunt force trauma to his head as well as what they described in their charging documents as bite marks on his back.
The documents further alleged Corey sat next to her father until he stopped breathing. The suspect was reportedly “overwhelmed” by the election results, telling authorities that Trump’s victory pushed tension between her and her father beyond the breaking point.
As reported by The New York Post earlier this month, Corey told police she felt “hyper-focused and disorganization when it came to her own attachment to her father.” The document also states she did “not seem fit to take care of herself.”
According to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, Timothy died from a combination of severe blunt force trauma, puncture wounds, and asphyxiation.
Corey is being held on a $2 million bond.
