The woman killed was identified as 88-year-old Shinko Oshino, and prosecutors say the driver kept attacking others after leaving Bellevue.
BELLEVUE, Wash. — The death of 88-year-old Shinko Oshino in the parking lot of the Bellevue Family YMCA has left a familiar public space at the center of a murder case that prosecutors say began with waiting and ended with a daylong trail of violence across western Washington.
For many people in Bellevue, the force of the case comes first from where it happened. The YMCA is a place tied to ordinary routines, especially in the morning, when older adults, fitness members and staff begin the day in a busy but predictable parking lot. Prosecutors say that routine was broken on Feb. 28 when Mark Alexander Adams, 68, allegedly used a white Toyota Camry to target Oshino, then drove south and struck two more pedestrians in Tacoma. The immediate stakes now include not just the homicide prosecution, but the unresolved question of why Oshino was chosen.
Oshino’s final moments, as described in court summaries carried by local outlets, unfolded in a matter of seconds. Police say the Camry entered the lot at about 6:45 a.m. and remained in motion around the property before returning again and again to the same parking stall. Around 7:40 a.m., Oshino was walking in the lower lot when the car pulled out, adjusted toward her path and accelerated. She was carried on the hood for about 120 feet before braking threw her down in front of the vehicle, investigators say. The car then drove over her without stopping. Bellevue firefighters attempted lifesaving measures after officers were dispatched at about 7:41 a.m., but she died at the scene. YMCA staff and identification found nearby helped police confirm who she was.
The brutality described by witnesses deepened the public shock. One person told investigators the vehicle was moving fast with the woman on its hood. Another said he initially thought what dropped from the car was a “fake body” until the car ran over it. Prosecutors later said the vehicle had been used as a weapon. Those witness accounts, together with surveillance footage from YMCA cameras and a Tesla parked in the lot, helped shift the public understanding of the incident from a deadly crash to an alleged intentional killing. Yet large parts of Oshino’s story have not been publicly filled in. Court records summarized in the media do not identify a motive, and no public account has shown a prior relationship between Oshino and Adams. That absence has made the randomness of the alleged attack one of the most unsettling parts of the case.
The community impact widened further because Bellevue was not the end of the day. Prosecutors say Adams then drove to Tacoma and was involved in two more pedestrian collisions, one involving a skateboarder and another outside a gas station, where a second victim suffered a spinal fracture. Those allegations suggested a threat extending beyond one place and one victim, and they became part of the state’s push for $5 million bail and strict release conditions. Prosecutors also sought orders barring contact with Oshino’s family, members of the Bellevue YMCA and the property itself. For the victim’s family, the legal process now unfolds alongside a public case narrative that has grown larger and more disturbing with each new court filing described by local media.
Authorities arrested Adams on March 1 in Port Townsend after investigators used the vehicle information and phone-location data to trace him, according to local reports. At arraignment, a judge ordered a competency examination, adding another layer to a case that already carried major emotional weight. Public reporting has noted older legal and mental-health history involving Adams, including a family protection order and an escape years ago from Western State Hospital. Those details may shape how the court manages the case, but they do not answer the central question left in Bellevue: why an 88-year-old woman walking through a YMCA parking lot became the victim in a homicide case built around deliberate action and repeated violence.
What remains now is a courtroom process that will move slowly against a public memory formed in one fast, devastating morning at a place many people knew as safe and ordinary.
Author note: Last updated April 1, 2026.