Corey Burke, 33, allegedly struck an stabbed her elderly father Timothy Burke with an ice axe on election night, November 5, strangling the 67-year-old to death in a fatal attack at her Seattle home.
Emerging from the house with blood "dripping" down her face, Burke confessed to police that she "freaked out," claiming there was "something important about Election Day."
Burke reportedly told cops that "she knew that she could not convince her father to keep the lights off," so she went upstairs and retrieved the murder weapon.
The killer then tripped her father and strangled him before attacking him with the ice axe. She then bit and hit him several times in the head and side with the blunt and sharp ends of the ice axe, cops say. His body was found in the basement.
Burke claimed she knew the killing "needed to happen today," according to a police report. She told cops she had to bite her father while choking him because "he was too strong;" adding that she felt better once he "went limp." The killer also said that as her father labored to breathe after the attack, she "sat next to him until he stopped breathing."
The police report also includes Burke's claims that she'd been "reborn" on her 33rd birthday last month. She reportedly told police she wanted to help people "change their attachment to their parents." The 33-year-old described how she killed her father, saying "it was really hard, really fucking hard" and "there were points where she felt she wasn’t going to be able to."
A neighbor first dialed 911 after spotting Burke smashing picture windows. The officer who responded to that call discovered the horror she'd unleashed inside. She initially did not let cops enter the home. They only went in after neighbors expressed concern for her father.
Investigators say Burke came out of the Rainier Valley home with a bloody face and appeared to be having a mental health crisis. She allegedly admitted to killing her father and smashing windows after "as an act of liberation."
Police say they recovered a bloody silver-and-blue ice climbing pick at the crime scene.
Burke was initially taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.
The day after the murder she reportedly whispered to one police officer, "I killed him;" adding that she had a strained relationship with her father and that she had been "overwhelmed" on election day.
Burke was charged with first-degree murder on Friday and is being held on $2 million bail. She is due in court on November 21.
Neighbors told police the father and daughter lived in the home together, and that Timothy was mostly home-bound because of health issues. Burke purchased the $800,000 Rainier Valley home in 2023.
Burke, a project manager at Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin, is married to a man, Samantha Leigh Allen who pretends to be a woman. He was a writer at far-left website Daily Beast, and currently an editor at Conde Nast's transgender news website. The couple are LGBTQ activists.
