Prosecutors in Seattle will not file charges against Miss Washington USA Stormy Keffeler in the December stabbing of Colorado Rapids player Marco Pappa.
“No criminal charges are being filed,” Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County Prosecutor’s Office, told The Denver Post on Thursday. “The case has been declined as legally insufficient.”
Police records say officers found soccer midfielder Pappa in his Seattle apartment on Dec. 17 with stab wounds and soaked with blood. They also found a bloody kitchen knife and Keffeler with blood on her hands.
Pappa was uncooperative with investigators, according to an internal memo from the prosecutor’s office reviewed by The Post, and did not return requests for further information.
Keffeler, who was 23 years old at the time of the stabbing, is Pappa’s ex-girlfriend and the Miss Washington pageant winner.
Police said Pappa and Keffeler appeared to be intoxicated when police questioned them about how Pappa became wounded with 2- to 3-inch stab wounds in his left side.
Keffeler originally said Pappa showed up at the apartment with the wound, authorities said. Then she changed her story, saying they were walking home from a bar when an unknown person bumped into Pappa before they noticed he was hurt.
Eventually, Keffeler refused to continue talking with police, according to official records. Pappa was taken to a Seattle hospital for treatment.
Inside the apartment, investigators found blood trails snaking through the residence leading to blood-spattered bathroom walls with stab marks on them. One investigator found a bloody kitchen knife in the kitchen that was taken for evidence.
After Pappa was treated, he told investigators several different stories about the night, including that he was having dinner, felt some pain and later found out he was stabbed, according to police reports. He also told investigators that after leaving a restaurant with Keffeler, he gave money to a homeless person in the street then noticed he was stabbed.
Pappa denied that Keffeler stabbed him, stating that he was drunk and couldn’t remember what happened, the reports say.
The internal memo says, however, blood evidence in Pappa’s apartment, including on the knife found in the home and the absence of any blood evidence near the apartment’s entrance, undermine his claim that he was stabbed outside.
Keffeler was crowned Miss Washington USA in October, but resigned her crown in January after she failed to disclose a driving under the influence conviction, The Associated Press reports.
Pappa, who was traded to the Rapids from the Seattle Sounders two days before being stabbed, missed team workouts after the stabbing and it took weeks for him to regain physical fitness.
He didn’t see any competitive action during the preseason.
Pappa has been the Rapids’ most important offensive player this season, having played a role in all three goals Colorado has scored.
In four games (two starts), the creative maestro has two assists and scored a game-winning goal against Los Angeles Galaxy on March 12 to give the Rapids their first win of the season.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or @JesseAPaul
Staff writers Dan Boniface and Elizabeth Hernandez contributed to this report
