An escaped inmate, considered armed and dangerous, dumped a stolen car in the parking lot of the Burlington Coat Factory in Edmonds and is still at large. The U.S. Marshals Pacific Northwest Violent Offender task force is hunting 38-year-old Andrew Kristovich, and has been for almost three weeks.
The U.S. Attorney in Seattle said that Kristovich has ties to Snohomish County and at the time of his arrest in 2018 was living in the Edmonds-Lynnwood area on 218th Street Southwest. He escaped from the medium-security federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon on April 25, walking out of the prison into a waiting car at 3:30 a.m. Two days later, Edmonds police found a stolen car, linked to Kristovich, at the Burlington Coat Factory on Highway 99 near the Snohomish-King County line.
Edmonds police spokesperson Sgt. Josh McClure said that there have not been any sightings of Kristovich and that the Marshal’s Service is leading the investigation.
Though police here and in Oregon knew about the escape, the media and the public in Snohomish County and other communities were not notified until 11 days after Kristovich fled. We do not know why there was a delay.
Kristovich is suspected of having a smuggled cell phone and convincing an ex-girlfriend to come pick him up at the prison. Seattle’s KCPQ-13 news interviewed the woman. She told Q-13 that he told her “he’d been released early.” When she picked him up, she told the station that she took him back to her apartment in the Vancouver, Washington area, where “he turned violent, sexually assaulted her for two and a half hours” with her children present and threatened to kill her. Then, he took her car; the same one police found in Edmonds.
Kristovich was serving at least six years after pleading guilty to two federal drug charges in what was a spectacular regional drug bust in 2018. Four hundred federal, state and local police arrested 29 people in Snohomish, King and Pierce and Kitsap counties in a raid that the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Officer Emily Langlie said was “such a big case.” Those arrested were accused of distributing huge quantities of heroin, meth, and fentanyl-laced oxycodone across the four county area. The Feds tied the ring to a Mexican cartel.
When Kristovich was arrested, agents confiscated 17 guns and ammunition as well as drugs. Federal records show he was distributing thousands of pills a month. His ex-girlfriend told Q-13 News that he “made statements that he is not going back into custody.”
Anyone with information about Kirstovich can report it to the U.S. Marshals online.
— By Bob Throndsen
This new reporter, Bob Throndsen writes a very good article. He appears to have much experience.
Almost 1500 reads of this article, people love crime stories! Try to find another story that comes close to that number.
I hope they catch this low life soon, 17 guns during last arrest, thats not good.
Was this the big drug bust in I believe Lynnwood near the mall The very large complex? And when you say 218TH St Southwest. Do you mean the street N of 220th off of 80th. Its between 220th and 212TH?
Good article and Thank you for a response to my questions. Deb
He did not “walk” out of a medium security prison. He was probably in the low custody prison camp next to the medium security. Your article makes it sound as though the doors at a medium security prison are never locked. Maybe next time ask the bigger question as to why someone with a history of violence is being housed in a minimum security prison. Isn’t Asking questions the job of the media?