Harrowing new surveillance footage shows an unsuspecting transgender teenager doing her laundry at college, unaware that a stranger who had just crept into the room was about to murder her. Juniper Blessing, 19, was filmed kneeling on the floor of the University of Washington dorm laundry room in Seattle around 10pm PT on May 10, when the man who cops say is Christopher Leahy, 31, crept in.
Blessing, who was wearing a pair of rainbow-soled sneakers, was stabbed more than 40 times in the horrific attack that prosecutors say began moments later. Another student came across the bloody scene around 10 minutes later and dialed 911. New footage shared by prosecutors stops before the violence begins. Leahy is said to have killed Blessing as she emptied the washing machine's lint collector.
The attack was a random one, and Blessing did not know her killer, according to investigators. Prosecutors say the murder was premeditated and that Leahy had set out to kill a woman on the evening of the murder. Leahy is said to have scoped out the laundry room before selecting Blessing as his victim. He followed a different young woman into the room at 9:45pm on May 10, around 15 minutes before the attack on Blessing. He left the room one minute later, then returned to the area at 10pm while Blessing and another student were inside.
The suspect who cops say is Leahy appeared to scope out the security camera and its wires while Blessing sat on the floor in front of a dryer. Prosecutors allege that Leahy unplugged the camera before he attacked Blessing, according to court documents obtained by KOMO. The filing stated: '[Leahy] comes back into the laundry room and stares directly into the camera mounted to the right of the door. He appears to follow the path of the power cord with his eyes and head from the camera around the wall above the doorway.'
Leahy turned himself in to the police days after the slaying, after surveillance pictures of the suspect were released amid an urgent manhunt. He has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held on $10 million bail at the King County Jail. Leahy was scheduled to appear in court on Thursday, but had the date pushed to June 4 after his lawyers raised questions about his mental health and competency, Fox 13 reported.
Leahy was a student at University Prep, an elite $25,000-a-year private school in Seattle, and for some time, he was 'popular' among his peers, according to an old classmate speaking to the Seattle Times. But the classmate said Leahy underwent a 'big personality shift' in tenth grade, saying there was a 'moment where the light went off a little bit where he wasn't social.' 'He went from him hanging out with us to him sitting by himself and reading books,' the classmate, who wanted to remain anonymous, said. Leahy became 'erratic,' according to his ex-peer, and, in one bizarre episode, he ranted to other students about drawing 'boxes inside of boxes that made no sense.'
Blessing's family said the transgender student was 'courageously living their life as who they were until it was tragically cut short.' 'Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known — highly intelligent, extremely talented, and deeply sensitive to the needs of others,' her family said in a statement via the Human Rights Alliance.
