In our last post, we wrote about a 25-year-old woman whose recent murder marked the fifth homicide case this year in Seattle. The woman was reportedly strangled to death in her apartment by a man who had been staying there.

Prosecutors charged the 43-year-old man second-degree murder for killing the woman who was reportedly his girlfriend. The Seattle Post Intelligencer also reports that the man, who was arrested on Tuesday morning in Woodland, has a history of domestic violence arrests.

The charging documents note that the couple had a troubled relationship with his girlfriend since she came to the United States in the summer of 2010. He apparently blamed his girlfriend for ruining his life after she reported his abuse to police last year. The woman had apparently moved to Seattle after he was incarcerated for threatening her.

She had apparently obtained a restraining order against him, but he had nevertheless stayed with her for two weeks in Seattle before killing her. There were apparently suspicions of infidelity on the man's part.

Investigators also found a text message the man had sent to a friend prior to the murder on Sunday morning, in which he said he was "sick in the head" and said that he planned to kill the woman. The message reportedly said, "From jail I just got out and now I can't control myself, my mind...Because I went in, my life and Rachel's life has to be taken by me." Another friend of the man apparently received a similar message prior to the murder.

On Tuesday, a relative of the man apparently received a phone call from a pay phone, during which the man said that he killed his girlfriend because he loved her.

Sources said the man is still in jail on $2 million bail, and is scheduled for arraignment in early July in King County.

Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer, "Murder charge filed in Greenwood domestic violence slaying," Levi Pulkkinen, 24 June 2011.