Police are investigating whether a homeless man jailed on suspicion of stealing a gun may also have cut an Auburn man’s throat to steal his prescription medications.
The 43-year-old suspect has not been charged with Auburn resident Wayne McCune’s murder on Aug. 2 but is to be arraigned on the stolen gun charge Aug. 28.
According to court records, when McCune’s wife returned home that day she found her husband half buried under a filing cabinet. According to what she later told police, she at first thought he had killed himself because, she said, he suffered from debilitating ailments and had been looking for ways to take his own life.
But when the King County Medical examiner’s autopsy revealed defensive wounds on McCune’s hands, it became apparent this was no suicide.
According to court documents the suspect had left Auburn suddenly Aug. 2, the day of the murder, without first informing the people with whom he had been staying. Discovering the 43-year-old transient sleeping in his car in the parking lot of the Snoqualmie Casino during the late hours of Aug. 7, police arrested and charged him with stealing a .22 caliber rifle from the home where he had been staying.
According to court records, the suspect also had prescription medication in his possession that matched what was known to be missing from McCune’s home, which is directly across the street from the home where he had been staying. Police also found a suicide note in the suspect’s own hand. Police say after detectives found him, the suspect admitted he had been living in his car since Aug. 2.
