Jury convicts Frederickson man of murder in car theft retaliation

TACOMA -- Christopher William Olsen, 34, was convicted of first-degree murder Monday in the 2014 shooting in Frederickson of a man he believed had stolen a truck from him.

Olsen is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 23 in Pierce County Superior Court.

The county prosecutor's office said that on Feb. 16, 2004, Olsen told friends that Robert Ward, 24, had stolen his truck and that he wanted to lure Ward to a phony drug deal and ambush him.

Later that night, Ward arrived in the parking lot at Canyon Road and 176th Street in Frederickson for the "drug deal," the prosecutor's office said. Olsen pulled in behind Ward and began firing shots at him. One of the bullets struck Ward in the head. He died in the hospital the next day.

Using cell phone records, detectives tracked Olsen to Idaho and arrested him there.