In 1993, a postal worker named Jim Fiori lived alone in an apartment on the South slope of Queen Anne. He worked the night shift sorting mail at Seattle's main post office at 301 Union Street. He was described by neighbors and co-workers as quiet, meek, and a bit of a loner. One of his neighbors, an elderly woman, couldn't seem to get over the fact that despite his exquisite view of the city, he never opened his curtains. "Does that make sense to you?" she asked reporters. (Yes lady, he worked the night shift.)
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| Post Office at 301 Union St. |
The 47-year-old was never married, had no kids, few friends, and had no female companions that anyone could remember. Except for the prostitutes he frequented on Aurora Ave. The lucky lady he picked up on the night of July 17th was Alane Scott. She was a 28-year-old mother of four, who had lost them all to the state. She had no home, no car, no possessions. But she did have a raging heroin addiction. She’d also been in and out of the clink on numerous prostitution, theft, and drug charges. With that said, she in no way deserved what happened to her. Jim picked her up around 9:30 in front of the Thunderbird Motel at 4521 Aurora Ave. (It was demolished on February 29, 2012)
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| 4521 Aurora Ave. |
They drove back to his apartment at 518 Prospect and negotiated a romantic evening for a price of 70 dollars. At some point afterward, Jim decided to take a shower and Alane decided to go through his jacket.
She found an envelope full of cash and as she was rifling through it, Jim came out of the bathroom. When he saw what was happening he grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed her in the chest. Then he strangled her. Surviving that, she made her way for the door. Jim grabbed a gun from a drawer, tackled Alane, put a pillow over her head and pulled the trigger. Then, he put her in his bath tub and left her there for almost a day. In whatever state of mind he was in, he figured the best idea was to dismember her with an axe. (This is my second post about an axe murder on Queen Anne hill. There’s a third one coming.)
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| 518 Prospect today |
After severing her head and right arm, he loaded the pieces into his Ford Fiesta and went looking for somewhere to get rid of them. Patrolman Lance Ramsay had been cruising North Seattle the night of the 18th when he noticed an erratic driver and pulled him over. His notes said the driver was "Nervous, fidgety, and would not look at me." "There was blood on the driver’s hands, steering wheel, and the outside of the hatch." The driver gave some excuse about cleaning fish and the cop let him go. He’s not a total idiot though, he jotted down the license number. The next morning Seattle woke up to the headline "Naked, Headless Woman's Body Found in Street". Jim had dumped Alane at the intersection of Roosevelt and Densmore on a quiet residential street in the Haller Lake neighborhood.
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| N. Roosevelt and Densmore |
She was noticed around dawn on the 19th. When word of the body spread through the police department, Ramsay passed along the license plate number and detectives paid a visit to Jim Fiori. He calmly invited them in. He hadn’t even bothered to clean the blood on the carpet, or discard the weapons used to commit the murder. After giving the detective’s excuses about the blood nobody would ever believe, they hauled Jim in. The next question they wanted to know was where the rest of Alane was. Jim told them he put her head and arm into a dumpster by Green Lake. (I don’t know which one) By the time detectives got to the dumpster, the contents were on the way to a land-fill in Oregon. After an extensive search, the rest of the body was never recovered. Jim said the years of frustration, isolation and anxiety collided with his anger at Alane and he “finally erupted like Mount St. Helens." He plead guilty and received 27 years. RIP Alane.
