A man accused of stabbing four women outside a home on Washington’s Key Peninsula was shot and killed by a Pierce County sheriff’s deputy, authorities said, a burst of violence tied to a long-running court order that relatives and neighbors said had raised fears for years.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner identified the dead women as Zoya Shabilykina, 52; Joanne Brandani, 59; Stephanie Killilea, 67; and Louise Talley, 81. The suspect was identified as Aleksandr Shabilykin, 32. Officials said deputies were responding to a reported violation of a protection order when 911 calls shifted to reports of an active stabbing, and the deputy involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave as investigators review the use of force and the timeline.
According to the Pierce County Force Investigation Team, deputies were dispatched at 8:41 a.m. Feb. 24 to the 14000 block of 87th Avenue Court Northwest in unincorporated Pierce County, near Purdy and the Gig Harbor area. Investigators said a deputy checked the status of the protection order and confirmed it was valid but had not yet been served, then obtained a copy with the intent to serve it. At about 9:30 a.m., dispatch received new information that someone may have been stabbed at the location, the team said. Three minutes later, at 9:33 a.m., a deputy reported shots fired. Investigators said three adult victims were pronounced dead at the scene with injuries consistent with stab wounds, a fourth was taken to a hospital and later died, and the suspect was also found dead at the scene.
Officials have not released a full minute-by-minute account of where the first confrontation began or how each victim ended up outside at the same time. Tacoma Police Officer Shelbie Boyd, who has spoken for the county’s use-of-force investigation team, said the call began as a protection order issue and then turned into an active assault. In an early briefing, Boyd said the order was not enforceable until it was served, and deputies were trying to deliver it when the stabbing reports came in. “While the deputy was getting that information, more information came out that there was an active stabbing occurring at the location,” she said. Investigators have not said whether the deputy issued commands before firing or how long the encounter lasted.
Neighbors described a quiet area of trees and narrow roads that suddenly filled with emergency vehicles. Chris Cardenas, who lives nearby, told reporters he was washing his truck when he heard gunfire and then sirens that seemed to continue for much of the morning. “All of a sudden I just heard like a series of gunshots,” Cardenas said. “You could really hear it echoing through the trees.” By late morning, the entrance to the neighborhood and an adjacent private road were blocked off with tape, and police vehicles lined the roadway as investigators worked. A mobile forensics bus and command vehicles were among the units called in as detectives marked evidence and canvassed for witnesses.
Court records show Shabilykina had sought protection orders against her son more than once, describing fear and instability that she said had grown over time. In a petition filed in late 2020, she wrote that her son pushed her and threatened her daughter’s boyfriend with a knife inside the home, adding that she did not feel safe. In an April 2025 petition, the records described what she said were escalating mental health problems, including grandiose behavior and hallucinations. In that filing, she wrote that her son told her her “grave has already been dug up,” and she sought an order keeping him away from her home. The 2025 order also directed him to follow a treatment plan that included medication and barred him from possessing dangerous weapons, according to reporting on the court documents.
The case has raised questions about the mechanics of serving protection orders and what happens when people cannot be located or do not accept service. Authorities have said the order connected to the Feb. 24 call had not been served before deputies headed to the home that morning. In Washington, domestic violence protection orders and no-contact orders typically must be served on the person named in the order before they can be enforced, a process that can involve law enforcement or a process server. Officials have not publicly explained why service had not happened earlier in this case or whether there were attempts to locate Shabilykin. Local reporting has noted that court systems did not show a newer order than one issued in 2025, leaving open what specific document deputies were preparing to deliver.
For Gig Harbor, the deaths also carried a civic shock. Brandani and Killilea were listed as volunteer members of the city’s arts commission, a group that advises on community arts programs and public projects. City records list both women among the commission’s members, and local officials and residents began sharing memories of their work in the community after the medical examiner released the names. Investigators have not said how Brandani, Killilea and Talley were connected to Shabilykina, whether they were neighbors who tried to intervene, or whether they arrived together. Authorities have acknowledged that they are still sorting out relationships and the reasons the women were outside in the moments leading up to the attack.
Family members have described warning signs in the hours before the killings and a sense that a crisis was building. Relatives told local media that Shabilykin had struggled with mental health issues and had recently stopped taking prescribed medication. They said the family became alarmed Monday evening after noticing a sudden change in his behavior and called police, but he left before officers arrived. They said Shabilykin then went to his mother’s home on the peninsula. Early Tuesday, relatives said they received a call that Shabilykina had been locked out while her son was inside and appeared to be in severe distress. Those accounts have not been fully confirmed by investigators, but they are now part of the case’s public record as authorities review dispatch logs, prior contacts, and the events that led to the 911 calls.
The deputy-involved shooting is being investigated by the Pierce County Force Investigation Team, which handles fatal use-of-force cases in the county. The involved deputy was placed on administrative leave, a routine policy step after a deadly shooting. Investigators have not released the deputy’s name, the number of shots fired, or whether body-worn or vehicle video captured the encounter. Officials have said they will complete interviews, review radio and 911 recordings, and analyze evidence before issuing findings. Because the suspect is dead, prosecutors are not expected to pursue criminal charges against him, but investigators can still release conclusions about the shooting and any procedural issues involving the attempt to serve the order.
By week’s end, the crime scene tape was gone, but investigators said key questions remain, including how the stabbings unfolded from the first contact to the deputy’s arrival and what role, if any, the unserved order played in the escalation. Authorities have said the investigation is active, and further updates are expected as the use-of-force review moves toward completion.
Author note: Last updated February 27, 2026.