Firefighter convicted of arson
After deliberating over portions of four days, a U.S. District Court jury Thursday found firefighter and paramedic Kenneth Southwell guilty of starting a $2.6 million fire last Labor Day that destroyed Heart Seed Co. in Fairfield in southeastern Spokane County.
The 46-year-old director of Emergency Medical Services for Spokane County Fire District 2 wiped tears from his eyes and bowed his head after the verdict was read shortly before noon.
Southwell will remain in jail until he is sentenced, sometime in the next 90 days. He likely faces at least five years in prison.
Assistant Federal Defender Kim Deater built the defense case around testimony from Spokane psychologist Mark Mays, who said Southwell was suffering from a mental illness when he started the fire.
Southwell didn’t take the witness stand in his own defense during the weeklong trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice, who prosecuted the case, called witnesses who testified Southwell started the fire out of anger involving an old grudge and because “he wanted to be the town hero.”
The fire started over the three-day Labor Day holiday period when Southwell was acting chief and “incident commander” at the scene, witnesses testified.
Afterward, prosecution witnesses testified, Southwell sought promotion to assistant fire chief, fearing he might lose his EMS position because he lacked a high school degree.
The jury was given three options: acquit Southwell, find him guilty or find him not guilty by reason of insanity.
On Wednesday, after deliberating for three days, the jury asked to listen to a taped confession Southwell gave agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives at the time of his arrest. The jury was returned to the courtroom late Wednesday and allowed to listen to the confession again.
In his confession, Southwell said he was angry because his ex-wife had married a man who worked at Heart Seed, and the couple had a child together. The same man at one time had been married to Southwell’s sister, the jury was told.
Southwell said he also believed that man and others were involved in an attempt to get him removed as EMS director because he didn’t have a GED degree, which was a job requirement.
“I know that’s no excuse, and I wasn’t out to hurt anybody,” Southwell told ATF investigators Lance Hart and Darrell Bone in the taped confession.
The jurors also asked the judge if they could agree on Southwell’s guilt, while being split on the question of whether he was insane at the time he started the fire.
Judge Fred Van Sickle ordered the jury to follow written jury instructions to consider the evidence and return a unanimous verdict.
After the verdict was returned, the judge polled the jurors, and they all agreed the guilty verdict was their personal verdict and that of the entire panel.
Deater then asked if she could poll jurors about Southwell’s sanity at the time of the fire.
The judge rejected the defense request, saying the jury instructions “were clear and they could only return one verdict.”
Van Sickle ordered a background report, but didn’t immediately set a date for sentencing. Southwell, arrested eight days after the Sept. 1 fire, will remain in jail until then.
He was convicted of a federal charge of malicious use of fire to damage property involved in interstate commerce. He faces between five and 20 years in prison.