About 30 community members gathered on a blustery Saturday afternoon in Purdy for a vigil in memory of seven of their neighbors killed in recent violence on the Key Peninsula.
The vigil paid tribute to the four women killed in a stabbing in Wauna on Feb. 24; Jen Lantz, who died in a shooting in Vaughn in January; and Wendy Walker-Carnagey and Chad Malloy, killed in what prosecutors say was a domestic violence incident on Herron Island in December 2025.
‘Lost to mental illness and addiction’
Speakers at the vigil on March 7 focused on the mental health aspect of the Wauna and Vaughn incidents.
“The perpetrators of this violence were not random strangers,” said Dan Whitmarsh, a pastor at Lakebay Community Church and a mental health counselor with a practice in Gig Harbor, “but in two cases, beloved family members lost to mental illness and addiction. Which only adds to the grief.”…