Teachers at a Maple Valley elementary school will try to shield their students from the grisly details of their classmate's death.
Third-grader Donald Christian Solomon Jr. was stabbed to death on Saturday in a Snohomish County motel room.
The 9-year-old boy's mother, Christiann Solomon, 39, was booked Monday afternoon into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of first-degree murder.
Criminal charges have not been filed by the Snohomish County Prosecutor's Office.
Marysville police say the woman stabbed her son multiple times and then attempted to stab herself to death.
Marysville detectives are continuing to try to determine a motive for the murder-attempted suicide, said police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux.
``It's tragic anytime a person feels their circumstances are so dire they need to take their own life,'' Lamoureux said. ``It's doubly disturbing when another life, especially a child's, as in this case, is taken also.''
A knife and prescription drugs were recovered from a room at the City Center Motel, where the boy was found dead and his mother unconscious and bleeding around 2 p.m. Saturday.
They checked in to the motel about 8 p.m. Friday without any luggage, police said.
A friend of the Solomon family told KOMO TV that Christiann Solomon dropped him off at work Friday afternoon. She told the friend she was on her way to pick up Donald at school.
The friend, who asked not to be identified, said he returned to the Solomon's home with Donald's father Friday night and Christiann and Donald were gone.
Solomon was treated at an Everett hospital for puncture wounds on her neck and forearms. She was taken into custody Monday after being released from the hospital.
People reached Monday night at Solomon's residence near Maple Valley declined to comment.
Donald had been a student in Ginger Sivel's third-grade class at Shadow Lake Elementary School, where his schoolmates learned Monday afternoon of the boy's death.
Principal Christina Everett and social worker Tracy Magee, a school counselor, told students it was all right for them to feel sad about the loss of their classmate.
The third-graders weren't given any details on how and where the death occurred, said Kevin Patterson, a spokesman for the Tahoma School District.
``The advice we usually go by is to keep it simple and as straight forward as possible for younger kids. We don't go into details,'' Patterson said.
A letter was sent home with students from Donald's class informing parents that ``a tragic event'' had claimed the boy's life, noting only that he was the 9-year-old whose death in the Marysville motel had been the subject of weekend news reports.
Counselors will be available today at the school to talk with students and staff.
Everett, the principal, described Donald as a friendly boy who got along with the other children, who called him Donny.
Donald attended second grade at Lake Wilderness Elementary School and started this fall at Shadow Lake Elementary. Patterson said he did not know what school the boy attended before coming to Maple Valley.
An apparently suicidal mother was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of her 9-year-old son.
Christiann Solomon, 39, of Maple Valley was scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in Snohomish County Superior Court.
She was found unconscious Saturday in a Marysville motel room lying on a bed next to her dead son, Donald Solomon Jr., police said.
According to police, the scene was an apparent murder-suicide attempt.
Solomon had several cuts to her wrist and neck, and was suffering from a drug overdose when police found her, authorities' reports said.
Police also found an 8-inch carving knife. Charging papers filed by deputy prosecutor Helene Blume said Solomon's injuries were not life-threatening.
Her son suffered six stab wounds to the chest and a wound to the throat, Blume said.
Solomon was released from a hospital Monday and arrested. The next day, her bail was set at $500,000.
Court records indicate she and the boy checked into a Marysville motel around 8 p.m. Friday. A cleaning lady tried to enter the room about 11:30 a.m. Saturday, but Solomon yelled that she was in the bathroom. Checkout time is 11 a.m.
The workers returned about 1:30 p.m. and spotted blood, vomit and the woman and boy on the bed.
Detectives found nine letters, apparently addressed to relatives, Blume said.
Solomon wrote that she was angry with her husband over his relationship with another woman and his treatment of her, Blume said. In part, it read:
``I loved you, but you didn't love me. God, it's sad that I had to take my life and Donny's for you maybe?''
In the letter, Solomon also said she wanted to be buried with her son.
In a letter to her parents, Solomon asked to be buried next to her mother and son. She also discussed what jewelry she would be wearing when buried, the type of music to be played at her funeral, what clothing she should wear and who the pallbearers should be, Blume said.
Detectives learned that Solomon recently had obtained 120 tablets of the muscle relaxant methocarbamol. It is capable of causing death if taken in large enough quantities, Blume said. Tablets were found in the motel room, documents said.
Detectives on Tuesday served a search warrant at her home along the Maple Valley Highway near Renton and seized papers, other prescription medication, an employment application and a spiral-bound notebook, court documents said.
Christiann Solomon's relatives were jolted with emotion Thursday as her image popped up on a television screen inside a Snohomish County courtroom.
Several family members of the Maple Valley woman charged with killing her 9-year-old son instinctively embraced one another as Solomon sullenly stated her name and plea of not guilty over a video feed from the jail.
Dressed in a dark blue prison uniform, Solomon sat behind a table with her lawyer during the brief arraignment hearing.
She held her head up with her left hand that covered half of her face as she closed her eyes for several seconds at a time.
Solomon's father traveled from his New Mexico home to be with the family, none of whom wished to comment Thursday.
Solomon, 39, is charged with first-degree murder for the stabbing death of Donald Christian Solomon Jr., who was a third-grader at Shadow Lake Elementary School in the Tahoma School District.
The mother and son were found Saturday in a Marysville motel room, lying on a bloody bed and facing one another, according to court documents.
Police said blood evidence indicated the boy's body had been placed on the bed.
Donald was dead when authorities arrived about 2 p.m.
Solomon was unconscious and bleeding from several self-inflicted slits on her neck and wrists she suffered in an apparent suicide attempt. After recovering in an Everett hospital from her injuries and a drug overdose she was taken into police custody on Monday.
The Marysville police investigation revealed that mother and son checked in to the motel Friday night. Solomon found the motel room unacceptable because the heater didn't work, so City Center Motel staff rented her a different room.
Saturday, a motel cleaning woman tried to enter the room about 11:30 a.m., a half-hour after checkout time. Solomon yelled that she was in the bathroom. Two hours later, workers returned to find the mother and boy on the bed and called 911.
Police found a bloody 8-inch kitchen knife, a nearly empty prescription drug bottle and several letters addressed to members of the suspect's family. Solomon expresses anger at her husband, Donald Solomon, over his relationships with other women and poor treatment of the suspect.
``God, it's sad that I had to take my life and Donny's for you maybe to see that,'' she wrote.
A search of the Solomon's home on Maple Valley Highway turned up hundreds of tablets of prescription pills for depression, anxiety, insomnia, and pain and muscle relief.
A 9-year-old Maple Valley boy was buried Monday in Renton. His mother remained in jail in Everett, charged with the boy's murder.
The funeral service for Donald Christian Solomon at Renton Assembly of God gave his family and friends an opportunity to remember the smart and friendly kid.
``I always wanted a little brother,'' said Donald's older brother Joey. ``I got to enjoy one for nine years.''
Family and friends said Donald was tall, athletic and had a natural talent for working on cars.
In fact, the 9-year-old was a big fan of car racing and owned quite a collection of toy race cars. He loved to read and listen to music. His favorite song was Cher's ``Believe.''
A young friend said: ``Just looking at him put a smile on your face.''
His mother, Christiann Solomon, 39, was being held Monday in the Snohomish County Jail in Everett, charged with stabbing her son to death on Oct. 18 in a Marysville motel room and then trying to stab herself to death.
At Donald's funeral, a neighbor of the Solomons remembered the antics Donald used to show off for her daughter.
``He would ride his bike all crazy and make us all laugh,'' she said. ``He would crash sometimes.''
Donald also motivated the little girl to remove the training wheels from her bike and learn to ride on her own by taunting her with calls of ``chicken, chicken'' for two weeks.
This year, Donald was a third-grader at Shadow Lake Elementary School in Maple Valley.
The boy's second-grade teacher Sharon Clark, who taught Donald at Lake Wilderness Elementary School in Maple Valley, said the 9-year-old ``had a way about him'' and spoke at the funeral about Donald's `` way with words.'' Like Jim Carrey, he had a ``comical response for everything,'' Clark said.
Donald was one of the last students to answer his teacher, ``Yes, ma'am,'' Clark said. She found his politeness disarming.
``You very rarely saw him sad or sorrowful,'' his teacher recalled.
A friend of Christiann Solomon said Monday, ``Donnie was the type of kid you could tell he'd make it through anything. Now he'll never get that chance.''