WA supreme court declines appeal of 2006 Castle Rock murder

The Washington State Supreme Court declined to change an earlier ruling from a supreme court commissioner regarding a 2006 murder committed by a convicted Castle Rock man, thus ending his latest appeal.

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Sean Kevin Lancaster, 54, of Castle Rock, pleaded guilty in 2007 to first-degree burglary and murder and was sentenced to 486 months in prison, or about 40 years and six months.

On April 9, 2025, Lancaster asked for permission to file an appeal even though it was past the normal 30-day deadline, according to a Cowlitz County Prosecuting Attorney's Office notice.

The filing was 18 years after his guilty plea. Still, the Washington State Court of Appeals commissioner granted the motion.

The county prosecuting attorney's office asked that the commissioner's ruling be changed, arguing that important information had been missed.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the prosecutors and reversed the commissioner's ruling, rendering Lancaster's appeal moot.

On June 2, the Washington State Supreme Court also maintained the ruling.

According to court records, on June 18, 2006, Lancaster was found by a police officer covered in blood and holding a knife in the doorway of an apartment on the 140 block of Second Avenue in Castle Rock.

He reportedly entered his wife and sister-in-law's home and fatally stabbed a man who was dating his estranged wife.

Lancaster, according to the arresting document, told the arresting officer at the time, "I killed him. I stabbed him in the heart."

The victim, James E. Morgan, 44, of Castle Rock, was found lying in a bedroom doorway. He died at the scene.

This was Lancaster's third unsuccessful attempt since 2007 to have the appellate courts reverse his murder conviction.

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