Police found the wife of a prominent trans-identified writer covered in blood and clapping her hands after she allegedly became "overwhelmed" by the results of the 2024 presidential election and murdered her father with an ice axe.
Corey Burke is accused of murdering her father, 67-year-old Timothy Burke, on election night in their shared home in a Seattle neighborhood. The 33-year-old woman charged with first-degree murder is married to trans writer and journalist Samantha Leigh Allen, the author of Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States, who also serves as an editor for the online LGBT magazine Them.
Officers arrived on the scene after receiving a report about someone breaking the windows of a home on Spear Place South, according to the Seattle Police Department.
Police found Burke with blood on her face, and according to King County charging documents cited by Law & Crime, she was "clapping inside her home." The young woman was later taken to Harborview Medical Center for a mental health evaluation.
After searching the house, police discovered Timothy Burke's body in the basement and a blood-covered climbing axe on the floor.
According to the Seattle Times, Burke told police she believed there was "something important" about the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris and that she felt overwhelmed with emotion. She allegedly snapped when her father started arguing about turning on the lights.
According to a deputy prosecutor, she "appeared to be having a mental health crisis." Prosecutors say that Burke tripped her elderly father, bit and strangled him before killing him with the ice ax.
"Corey stated that she had to bite her father while choking him because he was too strong," the charging documents stated. "Corey stated that once her father 'went limp,' she felt better. Corey said that she then hit him with the ice pickaxe in the head several more times. Corey then sat next to her father and watched him until she saw that he was not breathing anymore."
After the murder, Burke proceeded to break the windows of her home, telling police that the destruction was "an act of liberation." At some point during her interactions with police officers, Burke said, "I killed him," which could be a reference to her father.
Several neighbors who heard the sound of glass breaking on Nov. 5 told local news outlet KOMO that they thought it was because people were upset about the election results. After the neighbors called the police, officers said they heard the sound of clapping from inside the home on Spear Place South.
When Burke appeared, police asked why she had been clapping, and she replied, "she had been clapping inside her home, because she was happy, so she started clapping."
In an interview with KOMO, one neighbor recalled watching Burke, whose face and arms were covered in blood, speak with police officers.
"My first thought was something calamitous had happened in the household," the neighbor said. "My first instinct was, 'Did she kill her father with her bare hands?'"
Officers learned that Burke's father also lived at the home, and fearing for his safety, they entered the house to perform a welfare check, according to KOMO. Police then discovered the elderly man's body and the bloody ice ax.
In a police report cited by The Seattle Times, Detective Azrielle Brikey wrote that Burke did "not seem fit to take care of herself, and she was a danger to property and herself." The young woman is currently being held at the King County Jail, and her arraignment is scheduled for Nov. 21.
