SEATTLE (KCPQ-TV) – A West Seattle hairdresser said Ian Stawicki, the man who police said shot and killed five people in Seattle May 30, stopped in her shop after the killings and calmly asked for a haircut and beard trim, the online West Seattle Herald reported Tuesday.
Stawicki later shot and killed himself that day as police were approaching him on a street in West Seattle.
Earlier in the day, Stawicki had walked into Café Racer in north Seattle and, when refused service, opened fire with two .45 caliber handguns. He killed four people in the café, then shot and killed a woman for her SUV near downtown Seattle and drove to West Seattle, where he abandoned the SUV.
The West Seattle Herald said the hairdresser, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity, recalled how Stawicki appeared outside her California Ave S.W. salon that day, carrying a blueberry plant he had just purchased at West Seattle Nursery. She let him in, unaware at the time who he was.
“He said it was his daughter’s birthday,” the hairdresser told the online community newspaper. “He said, ‘I need to get a trim and make it look good for my daughter.'”
She asked about the blueberry plant, and Stawicki told her it was for his daughter. “My daughter can watch this grow as she grows up,” he said.
Stawicki had no children.
“At first he sat down and said he wanted to take his beard off, and I said, ‘Are you sure? and then he said, ‘Cut it the way a woman would like.’ And he said it a couple of times so I said, ‘OK’ and I trimmed it and cleaned it up. He said, ‘I’m a fisherman and the people on the boat don’t do a good job’ — so zip, zip and I was done.”
The hairdresser said Stawicki appeared “completely calm” and unhurried but, “when he sat down I saw three pieces of blood on his face.”
She noticed that Stawicki appeared to have tiny specks of blood in three spots: on his forehead, lips and chin.
“You know guys, they pick pimples and so I didn’t even think about it,” she said.
The hairdresser said Stawicki was only in the salon for about 15 minutes. He placed a phone call, but said the number he was calling was busy.
“He was just a walk-in customer,” she continued. “He was so calm. He seemed nice to me. I didn’t know. If he had acted a little weird I would know.”
When Stawicki left, he stepped outside and paused. “It seemed like he wasn’t sure which way he was going to go,” she said.
West Seattle Nursery employees confirmed that Stawicki purchased the blueberry plant shortly before 2 p.m.
Seattle police have not released their version of his timeline, but it appears the hairdresser may have been his next stop after the plant purchase. At some point that afternoon he dropped the plant and an unsigned thank-you card off on an old teacher’s doorstep while she was at work.
Seattle police have declined to discuss specifics of the case, including Stawicki’s West Seattle whereabouts, until their investigation is complete.
Here is the link to the full West Seattle Herald story. http://www.westseattleherald.com/2012/06/26/news/west-seattle-hairdresser-claims-stawicki-was-cust
