Seattle's first 2026 homicide stems from a shooting more than 50 years ago

The story of Joseph Garrett’s murder is more than 50 years in the making. His life ended on Jan. 4, making 71-year-old Garrett Seattle’s first homicide of 2026.

The shot that killed him was fired in 1973 outside of Garfield High School by a man who was never charged and who also is now dead, according to Seattle Police.

“We believe this is the longest delayed-death homicide that has happened in King County,” said Casey McNerthney, director of communications for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. “Delayed-death homicides, unfortunately, are relatively common. There are at least a few of them each year, but typically it’s [after] a few years or maybe even a decade.”

The only published account of the shooting that led to Garrett’s death is a short article from a newspaper that also no longer exists (at least in print) — the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A four-paragraph story with the headline, “Fight Ends With Youth Being Shot,” published on Oct. 3, 1973, said Garrett, 19, remained in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center and was being treated for a bullet that lodged in his back.

The P-I account said Garrett got into a fight with an unidentified man who tried to hit him over the head with a handgun at the intersection of 25th Avenue and Jefferson Street, in front of the high school and less than a block from where Garrett lived.

According to the P-I, Garrett grabbed for the gun and, during the fight that ensued, the gun went off. The bullet hit him in the shoulder, traveled down his spine, and stopped in his mid-back, leaving him paralyzed.

It’s unclear whether Garrett was a student at Garfield at the time of the shooting. McNerthney said he could not find Garrett’s photo in Garfield High School yearbooks from the time. Archival and online searches reveal little information about who Garrett was or other details of his life before or after the shooting.

On Jan. 4, Garrett died after living his entire adult life paralyzed from the chest down. The King County Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy and ruled the death a homicide as the result of his gunshot wound from 1973.

Detective Rolf Norton at the Medical Examiner’s Office offered no additional information, other than to say via email, “Those involved are deceased.”

Detective Brian Pritchard at the Seattle Police Department said the suspect in the incident had no arrest record, was not charged in connection with Garrett’s murder, and had died in 2009. Because he was not charged with a crime, police did not release the suspect’s name.

McNerthney praised detectives like Norton, who he said detests the phrase “cold case.”

“A lot of the cases that I think the general public might think are forgotten or ignored in the back of a vault somewhere are often on Rolf’s desk,” McNerthney said.

He brought up two homicides (one from 1994 and a second from 2015) that were forwarded to the prosecuting attorney’s office in November 2025, both of which resulted in charges, and another 1997 homicide involving a newborn found dead in a bathroom garbage can at a north Seattle gas station, which Nelson helped solve. That last case led to the conviction in 2023 of Christine Marie Warren, the newborn’s mother, for first-degree manslaughter.

McNerthney said advances in genealogy, forensics, and DNA technology make it more likely that homicides that appear to be at a dead end will eventually be solved.

“There's no statute of limitations on murder,” he said. “A lot of times, people may think after a few years or even a few decades that they've gotten away with it, but they haven't.”

Editor’s Note: If you knew or had interactions with Joseph Garrett and are willing to share more about his life, please email Stephen Howie at howie@kuow.org.