Stranger intern Matt Luby reports that at 3:30 p.m. today, Seattle police booked a 26-year-old man named Michael LaRosa into the Seattle Correctional Facility as part of an ongoing homicide investigation.

The police department has since confirmed that LaRosa is the suspect in this morning's murder, which police now say was not committed with a pickax, as multiple witnesses initially told them, but with something that "turned out to be more like a hatchet."

Bail for LaRosa was denied.

This is not the first time LaRosa has been booked into a correctional facility. He was most recently released from King County detention on October 15, after serving time for violating a no-contact order related to domestic violence. Prior to that, LaRosa was charged with—and served time for—assault and harassment stemming from violent incidents in February and June.

Meanwhile, a 50-year-old man who identified himself as Jean Claude and said he was the victim's roommate, told me that at the time of the attack the victim "was on his way to get some medicine at Seattle Mental Health. I don't know his personal issues. I just know that he didn't deserve to be killed."

Jean Claude said he'd lived with the victim in a house on 14th Avenue, on and off, for the last ten years. They both rented rooms there. Jean Claude also told me that he first heard about the attack on the radio earlier today, while he was in bed. "It's 50 feet away from me," he recalled. "I didn't even know it was my roommate."

He said he was in shock. He described the victim, a 58-year-old man living on state-provided disability insurance, as "a beautiful person."