Tacoma man charged with murder after missing woman’s welfare check

A welfare check at a Tacoma apartment turned into a homicide investigation after officers found the woman was gone and detectives began tracing signs that she had not simply vanished. What started as a missing-person call on April 1, triggered by a friend in Idaho who had not heard from her since March 23, ended with Kendrick Deshaun Bruce charged with murder.

Tacoma officers initially found nothing suspicious at the apartment in the 7600 block of Pacific Avenue, but a neighbor told investigators she had not seen the woman for about a month. Friends then told police that messages appearing to come from the woman’s phone did not sound like her, a detail that pushed detectives beyond a routine welfare check and into a possible cover-up.

Court filings described a chaotic relationship between Bruce and the woman, whom prosecutors identified as a 37-year-old Tacoma resident. Bruce managed the business where she worked and had recently been fired for theft, according to the documents. The woman’s child’s father told police she had previously shown visible injuries she attributed to Bruce and had warned, “If anything happens to me, Kendrick did it.” Another alleged threat in the filing said, “Nobody would find your body.”

Investigators also tied Bruce to the woman’s financial accounts after she was last seen. The documents allege he used her Chime account at a 7-Eleven in Puyallup on March 28 and moved $150 from her Cash App account to himself. Cell phone records and GPS data allegedly placed Bruce, his vehicle and the woman’s phone together in several locations after she disappeared. Cadaver dogs later alerted to Bruce’s Jeep Grand Cherokee in the cargo area, rear door and back seat.

Bruce was first arrested on May 15 on unrelated domestic-violence charges, including two counts of identity theft and felony harassment, then booked into the Pierce County Jail. He was released on May 18, but detectives kept digging. By May 20, they said they had built enough additional evidence to justify a first-degree murder charge, and they located Bruce again after a brief foot pursuit.

Pierce County prosecutors later charged the 30-year-old with first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree identity theft and unlawful disposal of human remains in Pierce County Superior Court. Prosecutors say the killing happened sometime between March 1 and March 28. The City of Tacoma says the case remains active and ongoing, with investigators still working a disappearance that has now been recast as a murder.