A woman in Washington state is accused of murdering her father with an ice ax — plunging the tool into his head multiple times during an argument over their house lights being on — after allegedly becoming “overwhelmed” with emotions about the 2024 presidential election, police say.
Corey Burke, 33, was allegedly “clapping inside her home” when officers arrived at the Seattle residence on Nov. 5 and found her drenched in her dad’s blood, according to King County charging documents.
Prosecutors say Burke admitted to killing her father, Thomas Burke, in an act of rage over the lights being on inside their home, with the charging documents outlining how she was “having a mental health crisis” spurred on by Election Day, the Seattle Times reported Monday.
Burke reportedly told detectives there was “something important” about the 2024 presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and she was allegedly “overwhelmed” by emotions brought on by it. Police say her father tried turning the lights off in the home that night during Burke’s alleged mental episode and the two of them went back and forth over it before Burke allegedly snapped.
According to prosecutors, she tripped her father and then began physically attacking him — biting and strangling the 67-year-old — before allegedly finishing him off with the ice ax.
“Corey stated that she had to bite her father while choking him because he was too strong,” her charging docs say. “Corey stated that once her father ‘went limp,’ she felt better. Corey said that she then hit him with the ice pickaxe in the head several more times. Corey then sat next to her father and watched him until she saw that he was not breathing anymore.”
After allegedly taking her dad’s life, Burke went around the residence and began breaking windows, telling cops it was “an act of liberation” for her, police say. Officers arrived shortly afterward and arrested Burke. While in custody, she allegedly told detectives, “I killed him,” in reference to her father, before explaining why.
“Corey stated … when her father started arguing with her about the lights being shut off, that she ‘just freaked out,’” her charging papers say. “The defendant told Detectives that she knew that she could not convince him to keep the lights off, so she went upstairs retrieved an ice ax and tripped her father, strangled him with the ax and her hands and then bit him and hit him several times in the head and side with the blunt and sharp ends of the ice ax.”
Prosecutors say Burke was not fit to take care of herself, which is why she was living with her father. The coroner’s report lists Timothy Burke’s cause of death as a combination of severe blunt force trauma, asphyxiation and puncture wounds.
Jail records show that Burke was being held at the King County Correctional Facility on a $2 million bond for first degree murder on Tuesday, with her due to appear in court on Nov. 21.
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