The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office has identified the human remains found in a Frederickson forest as 36-year-old Tomorrow Dawn Dill-Pickett, a suspected victim of homicide.
According to a news release from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, police were dispatched to the 7700 block of 176th Street East to investigate reported human remains on Wednesday morning.
Detectives confirmed the remains were human and started a death investigation, the release said.
The Medical Examiner hasn’t released the cause or manner of death, according to its portal. The day and time of her death is unknown.
According to Pierce County Superior Court documents, Dill-Pickett was last seen on March 1 when she and her ex-boyfriend, 31-year-old Kendrick Deshuan Bruce, went to Ocean Shores to visit her adopted father.
Dill-Pickett showed up to the visit with obvious physical marks she said came from Bruce, according to court documents.
She also made statements saying, “If anything happens to me, Kendrick did it,” and said that Bruce threatened her in the past saying, “Nobody would find your body,” court records said.
Friends of Dill-Pickett said they received texts from her phone after early March, but attempts to call her and FaceTime her were denied.
Law enforcement matched a March 28 transaction at 7-Eleven from Dill-Pickett’s email with security camera footage showing Bruce make the payment and drive off. That same day, her CashApp account sent $150 to Bruce, court records said.
Detectives interviewed the mother of Bruce’s child, who said he had been acting strangely since he came to live with her around March 5 or 6. He parked his Jeep Cherokee in the garage, which is abnormal, she said. His car was also “unusually clean.”
When she talked to Bruce about Dill-Pickett’s disappearance, he said that the two broke up on their trip to Ocean Shores, and he refused to go to law enforcement to clear his name.
A search warrant on Bruce’s Google account yielded searches such as “most common ways people commit suicide,” “how long does it take a dead body in an apartment to smell,” and “how to clean up blood from carpet.”
Bruce was arrested on May 14 and later charged with first-degree murder, unlawful disposal of remains and two counts of identify theft in connection to Dill-Pickett’s disappearance. His bail is $2,000,000.
The News Tribune
Bonny Matejowsky is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for The News Tribune. Born and raised in Orlando, she studied journalism at the University of Florida, where she wrote for the independent student paper, The Alligator, and WUFT News. After graduating in May 2025, she discovered her passion for reporting in the Evergreen State as an intern for The Spokesman-Review.