Sheriff: Boyfriend confessed to strangling Mason County woman, discarding body down ravine

SHELTON, Wash. -- The boyfriend of Kerry Hagelin, 40, of Lilliwaup, told Mason County sheriff's detectives he strangled Hagelin because he grew tired of "her arguing and threatening demeanor" and then discarded her body in a wooded ravine on May 1, court documents showed Monday.

The 29-year-old boyfriend is in the Mason County Jail on charges of first-degree domestic violence murder, the probable cause documents say.

Q13 News does not typically name suspects until they have been formally charged with a crime.

Hagelin's body was found down a ravine off a U.S. Forest Service road in the Lilliwaup area of Mason County on May 10.

An autopsy was performed last Friday morning, but the cause of death was inconclusive pending further investigation, sheriff's Lt. Jason Dracobly said.

However, detectives contacted Hagelin's boyfriend and got a confession from him, which led to an arrest for murder, Dracobly said.

According to the probable cause documents filed in court Monday, the sheriff's detectives said the boyfriend, who also lives in Lilliwaup, confessed to her murder.

He "claimed that they had been arguing while he was driving" a car from his home to his job site in Brinnon when, he said, "he grew tired of Hagelin  and her arguing and threatening demeanor and turned SB onto US Hwy. 101 from Triton Heights," adding that he he drove up Hamma Hamma Ridge onto a side road where he stopped the car and got out.

He "described opening the front passenger side door and using his hands to strangle Hagelin to death while she was seated in the passenger seat. (He) described removing Hagelin's body from the vehicle and discarding it over the side of the wooded ravine where they had parked," the detectives said in the probable cause documents.