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All other law enforcement agencies in Washington have the option to sell, trade, keep or destroy confiscated guns, but the State Patrol must sell most of its forfeited weapons. The agency is fighting that law in the Legislature. It fears guns it sells will end up in new crimes. Its concerns proved true in this and two other cases identified in an analysis done by The Associated Press .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A pistol the State Patrol sold in 2010 was found by Kent police in 2015 on a man who was prohibited from having guns. The same year, a Lorcin semi-automatic pistol the State Patrol sold was found while Kent police were investigating a man who fired into a car carrying a couple and their 1-year-old daughter, who was killed. The Lorcin was found in a \u201cgang house\u201d frequented by the shooter, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before he killed himself, Juhl lived with his girlfriend in a second-floor apartment near downtown Yakima. They were engaged, but neighbors say they were having troubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neighbor Edith Castillo said she was doing laundry in the basement when she heard a \u201cloud bang and a big thud, and then screaming.\u201d Castillo saw Juhl\u2019s fianc\u00e9e running down the stairs. She headed up to see if Juhl was OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I looked in the window, I saw him lying on the floor, so I just ran inside,\u201d Castillo said. \u201cHe was still breathing. He had his engagement ring next to his hand, so he was holding it when it happened. He was bleeding from his head. I was talking to him. I said, \u2018Kyle, what did you do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bullet continued down the hall and through the wall into the neighbor\u2019s bathroom, barely missing Adriana Dehonor as she reached for her 2-year-old son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was literally just about an inch above my head,\u201d Dehonor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both neighbors remembered Juhl fondly as a quiet man who loved night fishing. He was dealing with substance and alcohol issues by going to meetings, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKyle had a kind heart and had great friends who loved him. My heart is broken,\u201d his mother, Heidi Espe, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Juhl\u2019s conviction for ecstasy, alcohol and going AWOL led to a 48-month sentence at a Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, military prison. He received a \u201cbad conduct\u201d discharge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt took me six months to have the base commander reduce his sentence,\u201d Espe said. \u201cThen he was eligible for parole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neighbors said Juhl bought the pistol on Craigslist. In 2014, private party sales in Washington didn\u2019t require a background check by a licensed firearms dealer. That changed in November 2014, two months after Juhl\u2019s death. Now all firearms transfers must go through a licensed gun dealer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not known if Juhl tried to buy a gun from a store, where he would have had to fill out a federal form asking about felony convictions, military discharges and prison sentences of more than a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hampton said he checked with local agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and \u201cthey let me know that it was common that sometimes there was a military conviction that wouldn\u2019t be transferred over to our level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ATF spokesman Joshua Jackson said the agency wouldn\u2019t comment on the Juhl case, but it\u2019s up to the military to transfer records and the FBI to make sure they\u2019re entered into the database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a 24-year-old Army veteran killed himself in 2014 using a gun previously confiscated by the Washington State Patrol, his mother told a police detective her son had spent time in a military prison, so he wasn\u2019t supposed to have a weapon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":85189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,16,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[685],"class_list":["post-46534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"3Q2YXYFVXVFRJKH33LPXWCNSTE","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/2018\/01\/08\/army-veteran-killed-self-with-gun-previously-seized-sold-by-police\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP18005738417558.jpg.jpg\")