Man committed to state hospital for shooting his wife and daughter during a mental health episode in Airway Heights
Zion Carter, 42, was found not guilty by reason of insanity during a bench trial this year. Experts say Carter has schizophrenia spectrum disorder and experienced a severe psychotic break when he shot his wife, Stephanie Luke, and his 11-year-old stepdaughter in July 2021, according to court records.
That night, Carter reportedly appeared agitated, so he left the couple's home in Airway Heights to cool off. Luke and her daughter went to bed, but a few hours later, she awoke to the sound of a gun cocking and Carter mumbling about someone attacking him, The Spokesman-Review reported.
Luke was shot in the chest and the stomach. When she awoke, her daughter came into the room with gunshot wounds of her own. The young girl ran to the neighbor's house for help, court records say. Carter was later arrested in Pierce County.
Two years after the shooting, Luke and her daughter celebrated the end of numerous surgeries from the shooting by running Bloomsday, according to previous reporting.
Carter, who donned a yellow jumpsuit in court on Friday, told Spokane County Superior Court Judge Rachelle Anderson that a decadeslong sentence in solitary confinement as a teenager contributed to his mental health issues and he had no idea he was mentally ill until doctors expressed it to him.
When he got out of prison, he was left with no help or support, which likely snowballed his mental illness, Anderson acknowledged.
Carter asked for a less-restrictive treatment, but Anderson ultimately decided it was safer for him to be in a state mental hospital . Both the prosecution and defense agreed.
Carter also received a 45-month sentence Friday for unlawful possession of a firearm, but was granted time served for the years he has already spent in jail.
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