Corrections and Public Safety

Seattle police say 20-year-old homicide suspect Isaiah Jamon Andrews, who was mistakenly released from California’s Contra Costa County Jail last October despite multiple warrants, was arrested Tuesday by the U.S. Marshals Service in St. Louis, Missouri, after more than five months on the run. Andrews is accused of fatally shooting 20-year-old Theodore Wheeler in Seattle’s Northgate neighborhood on Oct. 15, 2025, and was initially picked up days later in Antioch, California, after a vehicle chase involving several agencies. Jail staff nonetheless freed him on Oct. 22 even though he was being held on local charges, a juvenile warrant out of Sacramento County and an out-of-state homicide warrant, an error Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes has publicly acknowledged but California authorities have yet to explain. The release triggered a multi-agency manhunt that ended this week with his arrest “without incident” in St. Louis, and he now faces extradition back to Washington state on a first-degree murder warrant. The victim’s family has blasted officials for the mistake and lack of notification, underscoring growing public concern about basic custody and warrant-handling failures in crowded local jails.