Capitol Hill woman's killer sentenced to 35 years

The man accused of killing Seattle Sierra Club worker Shannon Harps near her Capitol Hill home has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.

James A. Williams, 50, pleaded guilty last week to first-degree murder in the New Year's Eve 2007 stabbing. After hearing from Harps' family and friends, King County Superior Court Judge Palmer Robinson on Thursday sentenced Williams to the lengthy prison term.

Williams, who has been held at Western State Hospital during much of the time since his arrest in January 2008, has a long history of schizophrenia and violent crime.

Harps, 31, was stabbed to death in the stairwell of her apartment building. Police later found Williams' DNA on a kitchen knife found nearby, and arrested him shortly thereafter.

Due to an earlier criminal conviction, Williams was living in a home for extremely mentally ill offenders when the attack occurred. A community corrections officer supervising him wrote that Williams "was barely able to hold himself together" the day Harps was stabbed to death.

The unprovoked attack prompted widespread concern around the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Police initially identified another suspect in the attack; later cleared, that man, William Ball II, was himself slain months later in an unrelated attack.

Responding to the plea last week, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said in a statement that Harps' slaying illustrated a need for better coordination between the mental health system and law enforcement.

"This is a good resolution to a tragic case which will result in, essentially, a life sentence for the defendant," Satterberg said previously. "This case highlighted a lot of work that still needs to be done in improving the overlap between the mental health system and the criminal justice system."

Harps' death prompted a series of special reports in the Seattle P.I. on the state's mental health system and its failures. One focused on efforts to monitor dangerously mentally ill offenders like Williams.