Prosecutors said Dawn Dill-Pickett’s body has not been found.
TACOMA, WA — A Pierce County man was charged Thursday with killing his girlfriend after Tacoma detectives said he used her accounts and sent messages that made others believe she was still alive after she disappeared.
Kendrick Deshaun Bruce, 30, is charged in Pierce County Superior Court with first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree identity theft and unlawful disposal of human remains. Prosecutors say the case grew from an April 1 welfare check for Dawn Dill-Pickett, 37, whose friends and family said her sudden silence did not fit her normal behavior.
Court records say Dill-Pickett was killed sometime between March 1 and March 28. A friend in Idaho asked police to check on her after not hearing from her since March 23. Officers went to Dill-Pickett’s Tacoma apartment and initially found no clear sign of a crime. A neighbor told police she had not seen Dill-Pickett for about a month. Investigators later said friends compared messages that appeared to come from Dill-Pickett’s phone and believed the wording did not sound like her. Prosecutors said those messages were part of a pattern that hid her disappearance. Bryant Smith, Dill-Pickett’s former partner and the father of her child, said she was “a genuine, genuine person” and that her family needed closure.
Detectives said people close to Dill-Pickett described her relationship with Bruce as chaotic and dysfunctional. Court records say Bruce managed the business where Dill-Pickett worked and had recently been fired for theft. Smith told investigators Dill-Pickett had once arrived with visible injuries that she blamed on Bruce. He also told detectives she had warned him, “If anything happens to me, Kendrick did it.” Investigators said Bruce had also threatened that nobody would find her body. Police later reviewed financial records and surveillance video that they said tied Bruce to activity on Dill-Pickett’s accounts after she vanished. Detectives said Bruce used her Chime account at a 7-Eleven in Puyallup on March 28 and transferred $150 from her Cash App account to himself.
The investigation also moved through Pierce County, Ocean Shores and areas where phone and vehicle data placed Bruce, Dill-Pickett’s phone and Bruce’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. Missing-person notices said Dill-Pickett had last been seen in Ocean Shores in early March and that her car was later found near her home. Detectives said Bruce’s former partner told them he returned from an Ocean Shores trip acting strangely and kept his Jeep unusually clean and parked in a garage. Police searched the Jeep with cadaver dogs, which alerted to the cargo area, rear door and back seat, according to charging records. Investigators also said they found internet searches from Bruce’s Google account about knocking someone out, how long a body takes to smell, cleaning blood from carpet and rigor mortis.
On May 20, detectives searched Dill-Pickett’s apartment and reported finding what appeared to be blood evidence in several places, including the entryway, living room, hallway and bathroom. Prosecutors said Dill-Pickett’s body has not been recovered. That absence remains a central part of the case. Police have not publicly said where they believe her remains may be, and charging records do not describe a confirmed cause of death. Prosecutors said the alleged crimes involved an intimate partner relationship. They also argued Bruce should stay in custody, saying he had no fixed address or employment and posed an extreme flight risk. A judge set bail at $2 million during a Thursday afternoon hearing.
The charges begin the court process, but the investigation is still active. Bruce has not been convicted, and the allegations must be proved in court. Prosecutors are expected to rely on records from phones, financial accounts, surveillance video, search warrants, interviews and forensic testing from the apartment and vehicle. Investigators have not announced the recovery of Dill-Pickett’s remains or a full timeline of her final known movements. The next steps are expected to include additional court hearings, continued evidence testing and efforts to locate her body. Smith said Dill-Pickett’s son deserved “a final sendoff” and said he hoped the case brought accountability.
For Dill-Pickett’s family and friends, the case shifted from worry over a missing loved one to a murder charge without a body. Photos shared by relatives showed Dill-Pickett smiling, while missing-person posts described her as a mother whose lack of contact was unusual. Court records say that concern grew when messages from her phone seemed off and when her financial accounts showed activity after she was last known to be safe. Police said the welfare check on April 1 began with limited signs of trouble, but later records, interviews and searches changed the direction of the case. The prosecution now centers on whether Bruce killed Dill-Pickett, hid her remains and used her identity after she disappeared.
Bruce remained in custody Thursday after bail was set at $2 million. Dill-Pickett’s body had not been found, and investigators continued to follow evidence from the missing-person case.
Author note: Last updated May 21, 2026.