KENT, Wash. — Carol Lyons had many hopes for her only daughter Molly Dimitriou. But those hopes changed after she was shot multiple times and left for dead in Kent by a suspect who allegedly targeted homeless people.
“She survived, but she’s definitely gone," Lyons said of her daughter. "She’s not Molly anymore."
Dimitriou, 29, had been addicted to drugs in April 2022 and homeless, according to her mother. Lyons said she saw Dimitriou the day before getting a call from police that would change her life.
“Told me she loved me, got out of the car and the following day I got the phone call,” said Lyons remembers. Lyons said she thought police were going to tell her that her daughter had overdosed. Instead, police told her that Dimitriou had been shot multiple times.
KING 5 obtained security footage from April 14, 2022 that shows Dimitriou in downtown Kent near a car. In the video, she begins to run away and falls down. The Kent Police Department said the suspect, James-David Joseph Algarin, shot at Dimitriou six times hitting her in the leg and the head, then left her for dead on the sidewalk.
“It’s a difficult and painful thing to watch and see your daughter in that condition,” said Lyons. Court documents shed light on the defendant's alleged motive: that he wants to get rid of people who are homeless.
Text messages show Algarin talked to friends about killing or targeting homeless people. In a January 2022 text he wrote that he was "about to start thinning the homeless and gangster herd."
“They stopped a sociopath, a serial killer for sure has been put away,” said Lyons.
Dimitriou wasn't the only homeless woman Algarin allegedly targeted that April night. Records show roughly 30 minutes before shooting Dimitriou, Algarin picked up another homeless woman, brought her to the Kent Park and Ride and attempted to shoot and kill her.
Lyons is now Dimitriou's legal guardian; she says at 29 years old, Dimitriou has the capacity of a 12- or 13-year-old. Dimitriou had to relearn how to talk, walk and even pick up objects.
It's heartbreaking for Lyons who said she believes Dimitriou was close to changing her life for the better and getting sober.
“She was ready and willing to change," Lyons said. "She was right there at the bottom where she needed to be and he took that away from her."