Finding Arson Suspect Just First Tough Chore Proving An Arson Can Be Among A Prosecutor’s Most Demanding Duties

Finding and arresting Martin Pang is the first tough challenge Seattle police and prosecutors face.

But even if he’s found, arrested and extradited to the United States, trying him won’t be easy.

Proving an arson can be among a prosecutor’s most demanding duties.

“They are exceedingly difficult cases to prosecute unless you have somebody there that confesses or is caught red-handed,” said King County Deputy Prosecutor Lee Yates.

None of those things has happened in the case of the Pang warehouse fire that killed four firefighters in Seattle Jan. 5.

The evidence is largely circumstantial.

Even so, the King County prosecutor’s office charged Martin Pang on Friday with four counts of first-degree murder in connection with the fire.

They believe he wanted the warehouse owned by his parents, Harry and Mary Pang, destroyed so he could use the International District property for a business of his own.

Pang told at least three people before the fire that the warehouse housing Mary Pang’s frozen Chinese foods was going to burn, according to papers filed in King County Superior Court.

The charging papers, however, are missing one important element: the person who set the fire. Prosecutors haven’t ruled Pang out as the person who torched the warehouse, King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng said. But someone could have been hired to do it.

Despite police surveillance, Pang slipped out of Seattle aboard a train Jan. 17. He was seen briefly in the Los Angeles area, then disappeared. His attorney, John Henry Browne, said several weeks ago that he expected Pang to surrender to police. Friday, however, he said he thinks Pang is in Brazil.

The Pang case illustrates how difficult arson investigations can be, attorneys and fire investigators say.

A recent Tacoma case in which an arsonist confessed during a television interview is highly unusual, said Pierce County Deputy Prosecutor April McComb.

More often, prosecutors must build arson cases from pieces of circumstantial evidence and try to prove motive and opportunity.

Sometimes there’s the added burden of proving the defendant hired someone to light the match.

Defending an accused arsonist is equally tough, say defense lawyers.

Arson cases are often emotional, with jurors inclined to side with heroic firefighters rather than pernicious arsonists, says Everett lawyer Royce Ferguson.

He defended serial arsonist Paul Keller, who torched dozens of buildings in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties, including a nursing home where three people died. Prosecutors had witnesses who saw Keller at the scene of some of those fires. Keller, who confessed to all the blazes, is now serving a 99-year prison sentence.

Technical, scientific evidence from arson investigations confuses jurors, said former defense lawyer Julie Kesler, who defended two Whatcom County men on arson homicide charges in the 1980s.

The fact that a crime was committed is undisputed in most other criminal cases. But prosecutors of arson must first prove a crime occurred, Yates said. That’s difficult with big fires that burn up much of the evidence, he added.

Then prosecutors must prove who masterminded and set the fire.

In successfully prosecuting arsonist Clyde Leech in 1987, Yates had several witnesses who saw Leech at the scene before and during the fire. A Seattle firefighter died trying to extinguish the fire, which was set in an abandoned building.

The state Supreme Court upheld Leech’s conviction, firmly establishing the use of the first-degree murder statute when a person dies in an arson fire.

Prosecutors believe Keller set the blazes to get attention. But many other fires are ignited for financial reasons, McComb says.

Unless a business fire is obviously an accident, fire investigators will research its financial records looking for clues and motive, she said.

“It requires you to go back into the person’s financial history, see specifically how the business is going, who they owe money to, whether there is good cash flow or not,” she said.

Fire investigators must sort through layers of corporate and partnership records looking for connections in these white-collar arson cases, Skaggs said.

Skaggs has found many white-collar arsonists are good at covering their tracks.

“The perpetrator makes sure it’s going to be real hard for investigators to find him,” he said.

In fire-for-hire cases, prosecutors can charge the mastermind with arson even if the actual fire starter is never caught, Yates said.

Jurors are inclined to believe defendants are guilty if they are connected in some way to the building or people injured or killed, Kesler says.

And while jurors in assault or murder cases may understand how anger or resentment can influence someone, Ferguson said, most jurors can’t understand what would drive someone to set fire to someone’s home or business.

“With arson, you get into the underbelly or darker side of human nature,” Ferguson said. “It’s hard to get sympathy from jurors for a guy like that.”