King County prosecutors recently charged a Federal Way man with manslaughter for shooting his girlfriend in the face and killing her in early July.

Chris Tavita, 23, is being held on $750,000 bail at the Regional Justice Center in Kent.

Federal Way police arrived at Tavita’s apartment at 9:50 a.m. July 5 in the 2400 block of South Star Lake Road.

They saw Tavita’s girlfriend, Faavale Muipu, with wounds to her hands and a gunshot wound to the right side of her head, near her eye. They also saw a handgun on the counter. Muipu was rushed to Harborview Medical Center with life-threatening injuries and was put her on life support.

At the apartment, detectives interviewed Tavita, his 12-year-old brother and 16-year-old sister. Each one told police Muipu was spinning a gun on her finger like a “fidget spinner” when the gun accidentally went off, striking her.

But because Muipu had wounds on her hands, which appeared to be consistent with defense wounds, police arrested Tavita on assault charges.

Through their investigation, however, detectives would unravel the lies Tavita told his brother and sister to tell.

Post-Miranda, Tavita admitted his girlfriend teased she would use a Taser on him. He responded that he would shoot her if she did, charging documents state.

Tavita said he raised the gun and pulled the trigger partially back when it went off, surprising him.

“Chris stated at the time he pointed the gun at Faavale, he did not believe that it was loaded as the magazine was removed from the gun,” charging documents continue. “… Chris stated it was not his intent to shoot Faavale when he pointed the gun at her.”

Tavita told police he knew it wasn’t safe to point guns at people and had even told that to his girlfriend prior to the shooting, indicating that he should have known better.

At 4 p.m. that day, Muipu passed away from her head injury.

Tavita has no criminal history.