|
SEATTLE - A woman the Kirkland
Police Department (KPD) believe may have killed her former boyfriend, and
injured another female in October 2006 with poisoned Jagermeister was
arrested yesterday in London, England after arriving on a flight from
Geneva, Switzerland.
Thursday, December 4, 2008, Janjira Jeffrey Smith was detained by United
Kingdom Customs and Immigration authorities based on an International
Interpol Red Notice put in place by the U.S. Marshals Service sponsored
Pacific Northwest Fugitive Apprehension Task Force (PNWFAT). The Red Notice
requests any country detain Smith on the Arrest Warrant, charging Smith with
Murder, issued by the King County Superior Court on November 6, 2006. A
hearing regarding Smith’s detention was held today, Friday, December 5,
2008, in the United Kingdom, and Smith was ordered detained, and will now
face formal extradition proceedings in an effort to return her to Washington
State to face the charges against her.
October 7, 2006, the body of Roger Lewis was discovered in Kirkland in the
apartment of Thanyarat Sengpharaghanh (aka Nina). Nina was also located
within the apartment disoriented and blind. Both victims had immediately
fallen ill after ingesting a small amount of Jagermeister in the evening
hours of October 6, 2006. Roger Lewis was pronounced dead at the scene,
while Nina made a full recovery. The subsequent investigation by KPD
Detectives led to Smith being identified as the individual who had provided
the Jagermeister which had been laced with a highly toxic and restricted
pesticide. KPD believes Smith and Lewis had recently ended a romantic
involvement.
Following all attempts to locate Smith, and believing that she had fled to
her native country of Thailand, KPD Detectives requested the assistance of
the U.S. Marshals Service sponsored PNWFAT. PNWFAT Investigators working
with the KPD Detectives were able to determine that Smith had indeed fled to
Thailand, and began the process to have her extradited back to Washington
State to face the criminal charges against her. Smith, a native of Thailand,
is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
“For the past two years, everyone involved in this case have worked
diligently to locate and apprehend Smith, and bring this cold blooded killer
back to Washington to face justice”, said U.S. Marshal Joe Hawe of the
Western District of Washington. “In addition to the investigators from my
office working on this international investigation, there were many offices
that were instrumental in the apprehension of Ms. Smith”, Hawe continued.
“Those agencies include the Kirkland Police Department, the King County
Prosecutor’s Office, the Department of Justice–Office of International
Affairs, the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the U.S.
Marshals Service International Investigations Branch and various law
enforcement agencies within Thailand”.
“It is unknown why Smith was traveling to England, but within the past few
months, we have come very close to apprehending Smith in Thailand, and she
may have been attempting to flee Thailand in order to avoid apprehension on
this charge”, said Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Tom Lanier of the PNWFAT.
The PNWFAT is a U.S. Marshals-sponsored partnership comprised of
investigators from the King County Sheriff's Office, Seattle Police
Department, Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General,
Washington State Department of Corrections, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The Task Force is supported by the Project Safe Neighborhoods Initiative and
was formed to concentrate apprehension efforts to remove federal, state and
local fugitives from the streets. The Task Force objective is to disrupt
illegal gang, gun and drug activity in the Pacific Northwest and to reduce
the amount of violence in the region.
For more information about the U.S. Marshals Service, visit http://www.usmarshals.gov
or U.S. Marshal’s Western Washington website at www.usmarshals.gov/district/wa-w.
For additional information on the Project Safe Neighborhoods Initiative, go
to the PSN website at www.psn.gov.
For information on the apprehension, call Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal
Tom Lanier at 206-370-8604; for information on the criminal case, call the
King County Prosecutor’s Office at 206-296-9000. |
