Victim’s family wants suspect alive for trial

Kayletta Olbricht, 17, spent about two months recovering in a Seattle hospital last year from burns that covered 23 percent of her body.

While family members say the Rogers High School student has made an amazing physical and emotional recovery, they support Spokane County’s legal fight to keep the arson suspect alive.

Charles Robert McNabb, 50, is on day 124 of a hunger strike in the Spokane County Jail. He has told jail officials that he’s attempting to starve himself to death out of remorse for what he did to Olbricht, who is his stepdaughter, jail commander Dick Collins said.

McNabb is charged with using Coleman fuel to start his estranged wife’s house on fire on May 23, 2003. Olbricht was in the house at the time and suffered burns on her hands, arms, face and back. She had no pulse when emergency crews arrived at the house, at 307 S. Greene, said her father, Greg Kelly.

“By her demeanor, you couldn’t tell she had been in something like that,” Kelly said. “She’s doing great.”

Fearing McNabb will die before his July 14 trial, Spokane County officials obtained a court order that allows doctors to force-feed him when his condition becomes critical.

But McNabb’s civil attorney David Blair-Loy has appealed that court order to the State Court of Appeals, saying that McNabb has an absolute right – based on individual autonomy, liberty and dignity – to control what goes into his body.

An appeal “takes months in a normal case. But his is not a normal case,” Blair-Loy said. “It really gets down to who owns his man’s body. Does it belong to him or the state?”

The county’s legal counsel, Timothy O’Brien, said Tuesday that it’s his opinion that the county is compelled to keep McNabb alive.

Both Kelly, of Seattle, and his father, Larry Kelly, of Spokane, agree with O’Brien that McNabb should be kept alive to stand trial.

“I have a great deal of empathy and sympathy for the prosecutor and the state,” said Larry Kelly. “They are absolutely in a no-win situation. If (McNabb) is determined that he wants to die, I don’t have a problem with that. But I have a problem with allowing him to die without a sentencing.”

McNabb faces one count of first-degree arson and six counts of first-degree assault. According to court records, he hasn’t eaten any food since Feb. 5 except for three days while at Eastern State Hospital.

Sheriff Mark Sterk said Tuesday that McNabb has lost about half of his weight, which was about 180 pounds when he was arrested May 24, 2003.

McNabb remains on suicide watch, which requires a jailer to check on him every 15 minutes. And he gets regular doctor visits, Collins said.

A nurse checked McNabb on Wednesday morning, Collins said. “He’s still alive and kicking. I said, ‘Let’s make sure he stays that way.”’

Greg Kelly didn’t know about McNabb’s hunger strike until Wednesday.

“Good for him. Wow,” Kelly said. “One side of me says let him kill himself. The other half says keep him alive and make him pay for what he did.”

Kelly said he spent countless, helpless hours with Olbricht, who remained unconscious for some time after she was taken last year to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

“It was very very hard during the first two weeks because she had all the tubes sticking out of her,” Kelly said.

Larry Kelly said most of Olbricht’s scarring occurred on her back and arms. She still faces cosmetic surgery, he said.

“She has done amazingly well dealing with what transpired,” Larry Kelly said. “She has certainly outdone all the rest of us in not letting that affect her as I believe it would have affected me.”

While the teenager’s recovery has progressed, the family’s frustration has grown based on the time it’s taken to get McNabb in court, Larry Kelly said.

“We want so bad to get resolution,” he said.