Teen Says He Killed For Experience Suspect Tells Police He Wanted To Do ‘Something Truly Phenomenal’

A teenage boy accused of killing a Bellevue family of four offers no motive in a taped confession to police other than to describe the killings as an “opportunity to experience something truly phenomenal.”

A transcript of the confession by Alex Baranyi was made public this week as part of a request by the lawyer for Baranyi’s alleged accomplice in the killings, David Anderson. Attorney Michael Kolker wants Anderson tried separately.

In the confession, portions of which were published Friday by the Eastside Journal in Bellevue, Baranyi initially tells police that he alone strangled Kim Wilson, then beat and stabbed her parents and younger sister late Jan. 3 and early Jan. 4.

When detectives told him they knew more than one person was in the Wilson home, Baranyi acknowledged there was an accomplice, but refused to say who it was.

Baranyi and Anderson, both now 18, were arrested in January and have each pleaded innocent to four counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

If convicted of aggravated murder, Baranyi and Anderson, who have been charged as adults, face life in prison without possibility of parole.

The body of Kim Wilson, 20, was found strangled Jan. 5 in the Woodridge Water Tower Park. That led police to her family’s nearby home, where they found the bodies of her parents, Bill and Rose Wilson, 52 and 46, and her 17-year-old sister, Julia.

Four days after the Wilsons’ deaths were discovered, investigators drew from Alex Baranyi, then 17, an account of the killings.

In the transcript, Baranyi told police he was with Anderson, then 17, when he looked in Anderson’s address book Jan. 3 for Kim Wilson’s pager number. That evening, Baranyi paged Kim Wilson, who called back within a few minutes and agreed to meet him at a Chevron station near the Bellevue Way home where he was living. They drove in her sister’s car to the water tower park in her neighborhood, where they could walk the trails and talk, he said.

Baranyi couldn’t tell the investigators why he started to strangle Kim Wilson with a “run of the mill” 2-foot piece of rope he had in his pocket.

“When I, when I realized I was strangling her, I, I remember seeing her face turn blue and I just, I couldn’t stop,” he is quoted as saying. “I don’t know why. I just, I felt angry, but I don’t know why.”

Later, he acknowledged that an accomplice was with him and helped hide her body in some bushes.

Fearing the girl’s parents would know he had been with her, Baranyi drove the sister’s car to a spot near her house. He told detectives he waited for at least an hour, then pulled into her driveway and walked in through the unlocked front door.

Initially, he said he was armed only with a 5-inch knife and found a bat in the garage. Later he said he brought the bat and also used a kitchen knife.

He said he felt “really scared” when the family dog started barking as he approached the sleeping family.

After Bill Wilson quieted the dog, Baranyi climbed the stairs for a second time and entered the bedroom where Rose and Bill Wilson slept. He said that as the dog started barking again, he slammed the bat into Rose Wilson’s head.

He said he then stabbed Bill Wilson, then turned into the hall, where Julia had turned on the light. He described her terrified fall to the floor, his knife thrust as she wept and his words to her.

“I told her I was sorry,” he told police. “I was sorry that I was killing her.”

Baranyi left after taking Bill Wilson’s wallet and the family’s video recorder, CD player and phone.

He drove to the house where he was staying, hid the VCR and CD player, changed his clothes and returned to the car, he told police. He told officers he threw the murder weapons and clothing into a trash bin, then drove to the Wilsons, left the car and walked home.

There, he went to bed, sleeping until noon or 1 p.m.

Baranyi later told detectives there was no motive for the deaths. Rather, he said, “there is just that opportunity to experience something truly phenomenal.”

Kolker, Baranyi’s attorneys and King County prosecutors are expected to argue their positions on separating the trials in a Sept. 26 hearing before Superior Court Judge Bobbe Bridge.

The trial, initially set for October, is likely to be postponed.