Rickesha Denise Overton: Murder Charge Dismissed Against Woman Who Fatally Shot Her Friend and Here is Why.

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Rickesha Denise Overton, 34, will not stand trial for the shooting death of a friend in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood after a judge found her mentally incompetent, court records show. 

The murder case was dismissed in November 2025, and Overton has since been committed to a state psychiatric hospital under civil custody.

Rickesha Denise Overton 


In the early morning hours of March 3, 2024, Seattle police officers responded to a shooting that happened at an apartment building in the 2500 block of Western Avenue. 

When the officers arrived, they found 20-year-old Alisia M. Decoteau suffering from a gunshot wound in an alley behind the Crocodile music venue, between Wall and Vine Streets.

According to police reports, officers tried to save her, but she died at the scene, as per King 5 News.

During preliminary investigations, detectives uncovered that the shooting happened after an argument broke out between Overton and Decoteau inside an apartment, and surveillance cameras captured much of what happened next. 

The footage showed Overton following Decoteau down a flight of stairs while holding a handgun, as the two of them still argued. 

Overton then guided Decoteau through an exterior door into the alley and went back inside alone. However, after climbing halfway up the stairs, she then turned around, pushed open the door again, and fired three shots at Decoteau as she lay on the ground. 

Tragically, one of those bullets struck her in the back of the head.

During the confrontation, and before the shooting, Overton reportedly taunted Decoteau with the words, “Say I won’t, say I won’t.” 

When neighbors tried to intervene, Overton pointed the gun at them, but the weapon jammed, preventing any additional injuries.

Police eventually arrested Overton nearby, and she was still holding the black handgun, which was now empty. 

Alisia M. Decoteau

Police at the crime scene 


When she was questioned by detectives, Overton claimed self-defense. “She came into my apartment, it was self-defense, I had to shoot her,” she said. 

However, prosecutors disagreed and on March 6, 2024, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office formally charged Overton with first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree assault.

They argued that Overton posed a serious threat to the community, and they pointed to a separate incident from about two months earlier, when Overton had been arrested for attempting to push Decoteau out of a third-story window.  

Her Bail was set at $5 million, however, the criminal proceedings, would never reach a jury. After months of evaluation and legal debate, a King County Superior Court judge signed a dismissal order on November 13, 2025, as per KOMO News.

The order stated that Overton was found incompetent to stand trial, lacking the capacity to “understand the nature of the proceedings against themselves [and] assist in their own defense.”

Instead of facing criminal prosecution, Overton will be held at Western State Hospital, and the Washington Attorney General’s Office will oversee the matter as a civil commitment case. 

If doctors eventually decide she is eligible for release, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office will be notified and may choose to refile the murder charges, which would reset the case from the beginning. 

Under state law, a person can go through as many as three periods of competency restoration before a case is dismissed—but a dismissal is not the same as a release, and Overton remains in custody.

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