Tri-Cities man shielded a woman before being killed. Murder warrant issued for her ex

A 24-year-old Burbank man was in bed with a woman when he was killed inside a Richland motel room on Friday morning.

Anthony M. Irvine threw a blanket over the woman and shielded her with his own body before he was shot in the head by her ex-boyfriend, according to court documents.

The suspect, Jonah Wayne Glass, 23, is believed to have entered the room at the Days Inn after Joselyn Guzman, who was visiting the couple, left the door ajar.

A nationwide arrest warrant has been issued for Glass, who is charged with premeditated first-degree murder.

Bail on the warrant is set at $1 million.

Guzman, 29, is locked up on suspicion of first-degree murder for her alleged role in the fatal shooting. She was booked into the Benton County jail Saturday night and made her first appearance in court Monday.

The Kennewick mother has not yet been charged. Her bail is set at $500,000.

Irvine was identified Monday as the victim by the Benton County Coroner’s Office.

An autopsy will be performed Tuesday at the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office. That is because forensic pathologists are not traveling right now because of the coronavirus pandemic, so coroners have to drive across the state with the body for examination, according to the coroner’s office.

Shot at motel bed

Police were called to the motel on Jadwin Avenue, near Lee Boulevard, at 10:22 a.m. Friday for a report of a man being shot inside a room. Officers found Irvine dead in one of the beds.

Six minutes before that 911 call, Richland police were alerted by a city worker about a suspicious man seen running on the north side of the motel. That caller said the man looked “like he had done something wrong,” court documents said.

The man was seen getting into a red Mazda sedan. The city worker got a license plate, and police discovered the sedan had been reported stolen Thursday from a Kennewick gas station.

Investigators talked with witnesses both at the motel and out on the street about what they saw.

One person told police that shortly before the shooting, Guzman had been inside the room talking to someone on her cellphone, documents said.

She then left the room to go to her car but did not fully shut the door.

That’s when a Glass — wearing a blue-colored bandana and dark-colored clothes — entered the room with a gun, walked to the second bed with Irvine in it and fired at him at least once, court documents said.

The woman in bed with Irvine, Jasmine Uribe, 26, was not hurt. And another man in the room, Fernando Gonzalez, also was not wounded.

He told investigators that he and Irvine smoked some fentanyl pills called Mexi’s the night before and fell asleep. He said he woke up on one of the beds just before the shooting.

Guzman reportedly had been at the motel room a couple times the night before and had left but was back that morning, said witnesses.

Police noted that while initially searching the room, they saw several calls come in to a phone left on one of the beds. The missed calls were from Guzman.

After her arrest, Guzman told detectives that when she left the motel room to “gather her belongings and secure her car,” she passed a man wearing a bandanna over his face but didn’t think much of it “because of the recent concerns with COVID-19,” documents said.

Guzman claimed she was by her car when she heard a loud “pop” come from Irvine’s room. She eventually left and was later arrested by Pasco police while driving with her boyfriend.

The stolen Mazda was found Friday parked at Crosspointe Apartments in Kennewick. It was not occupied but had been left running.

Police believe Glass changed his clothes at the Kennewick apartment and then had two friends take him to some unknown place in Pasco, said court documents.

History of addiction

Guzman, a mother of three, has a long history of drug problems, admitting three years ago during one criminal case that she is a drug addict and wanted help.

At the time her three daughters had been turned over to a relative to be cared for while she served a prison sentence and got drug treatment, court records show.

Guzman has twice been sentenced to prison, each time for just over one year.

Her convictions date to 2014 in Benton, Franklin and Cowlitz counties, and she has two pending criminal cases in Benton County. She was out of jail awaiting an August trial.

This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 4:15 PM.