A man accused of beating his girlfriend to death Wednesday outside an apartment building in the Stadium District area previously was convicted of murder.
Michael Anthony Cooley, 61, was arrested a few hours after the woman's body was discovered near the 400 block of North G Street, charging documents show. The woman's friend told Tacoma detectives that the victim and her alleged killer had been in a relationship since January.
Prosecutors charged Cooley with two counts of second-degree murder and third-degree assault in connection with the woman's death outside the G Street Apartments in Tacoma, court records show. The building is where the victim and Cooley resided.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner had not released the victim's name as of Thursday afternoon.
A plea of not guilty was entered on Cooley's behalf at his arraignment at Pierce County Superior Court on Thursday. Judge Karena Kirkendoll set his bail at $1 million, records show.
Cooley previously was convicted of second-degree murder in Virginia in 1985. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison, records show. He has also been convicted of fourth-degree assault and has domestic violence related arrests.
Charging documents detail homicide
Tacoma police were dispatched at 2:33 a.m. to the building for reports of a death investigation. Tacoma Fire was on the scene where the woman's body was discovered. There was a large pool of blood on top of her head and she appeared to have suffered blunt-force trauma. She was declared dead at the scene, prosecutors wrote.
A group of residents was standing in front of the building, including Cooley. Officers interviewed Cooley, as well as the residents, prior to him being identified as a suspect. Cooley told police that he was outside smoking with the woman and that everything was fine at the time, prosecutors wrote.
A security guard for the Tacoma Housing Authority told officers that he drove near where the woman's body was found at 12:45 a.m. and saw a man rubbing a female's back, prosecutors wrote. She was lying face down, and the security guard asked him if they were OK. The man replied that they were fine, so the guard drove away. The man was later identified as Cooley.
While officers waited for detectives to arrive, one of them found a bloody block of concrete next to the sidewalk. There was a blood trail leading from the location where the woman's body was found to where the block was located.
A witness who lives in a nearby building told officers that at about 1 a.m. she walked out on her balcony and heard a man and woman arguing. She believed it was coming from the North G Apartments. She heard a woman yell, "Oh God, no." The witness went back to her apartment and did not think much of it because she "always hears loud voices from the North G Apartments," prosecutors wrote.
A resident told police that the victim previously texted her saying that Cooley was sending her threatening text messages. One of the texts sent to the resident read, "Mike told me that he was going to kick the (expletive) out of me." It was sent on April 30, a day before the homicide, documents show.
Prosecutors wrote that detectives reviewed video surveillance from the apartment complex camera. The footage showed a woman matching the victim's description at 1:06 a.m. walking outside the front door of the building. A few minutes later, a man walked outside. It appeared that the man pushed the woman and she fell. Then he walked back into the building with a dog.
The same man came back outside without a dog and approached the woman who was lying on the ground. He started "manipulating" her body and jacket. The security company car pulled up at 1:26 a.m. and paused before driving away. It came around again before leaving. The man removed the woman's jacket and went back inside the building with it, prosecutors wrote.
Detectives went to the back of the building and found a jacket in the trash can with what was suspected to be blood on it, documents show.
Detectives spoke to Cooley at his apartment and when they told him they wanted to interview him, he became uncooperative. When the detective tried to grab his hands, he struggled and then was placed into handcuffs. Cooley attempted to slip from the detective, yelled an expletive and spat in his face, prosecutors wrote.
During an interview, Cooley allegedly told detectives he had beaten the woman to death. He said that during the incident he was going to help her, but she told him that he was going to go to jail for the rest of his life. Cooley said, "I am not going back," and began to "stomp and kick" the woman, prosecutors wrote. He later said he was "triggered" by something she said and "snapped."
Cooley allegedly said he began to "punch and stomp" the woman more than "50 times" until she was dead. He said he removed her jacket because the tread pattern from the shoes could be seen in the blood on the jacket. When asked if he hit the woman with the brick, he said, "I might have," documents show.
When a detective asked him if his DNA would be on the block, his alleged response was, "Probably, I didn't bleed," prosecutors wrote.
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