Police and fire units responded to a house fire call on June 28 in West Seattle's Gatewood neighborhood. The co-owner of the home is accused of arson in the blaze.
Update for July 1:
King County Prosecutors charged John C. Siegel with first degree arson and domestic violence in addition to felony domestic violence in violation of a court order on July 1.
Siegel is accused of intentionally setting fire to the home he co-owns with his ex-wife on the 7100 block of 39th Ave S.W. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg has also charged Siegel with domestic violence in the arson act.
Additionally, Satterberg charged Siegel with violation of a May 20 court order to stay away from his ex-wife. He violated the order by going to the West Seattle home she was living at after being released from jail (he was locked up for threatening the life of a Seattle Municipal Court judge - more information on that below).
Siegel remains in jail and is scheduled for arraignment on July 14. Prosecutors have asked for $1 million in bail.
Original story from June 30:
The man accused of trying to burn down the Gatewood neighborhood home he co-owns with his ex-wife is in jail on arson charges.
Police and fire crews responded to the 7100 block of 39th Ave S.W. in West Seattle on the morning of June 28 to two separate calls: one for the fire gutting the house and another for a suicidal male at the residence.
According to probable cause documents, officers arrived and the suspect told police he was asleep and woke up to the house on fire. The man had self-inflicted injuries to his wrist (and admitted to causing the injuries himself) and was taken to Harborview Medical Center where he recovered.
After the fire was brought under control (over $100,000 in damages according to the Seattle Fire Department) arson investigators entered the home and determined the fire was started in an upstairs bedroom with “a hand held flame to available combustibles,” according to court papers.
The suspect’s ex-wife, who co-owns the house, told police she left the residence around 7:30 that morning. The night before, according to police, the suspect told his ex-wife “if she did not come back to him he did not want to live.”
A neighbor told police the home is currently in the process of foreclosure.
Investigators spoke to the suspect at Harborview and he told them he awoke to “the sound of crackling of fire … there was fire and smoke all over.” Based on arson investigators understanding of the fire, they believed the suspect would have sustained burns but he did not have any. The suspect also told police his hair had been singed but officers did not find any singed hair on his head.
More details to come if and when formal charges are filed against the suspect.
A troubled past
Court records show the arson suspect has a history of harassment and violence, culminating in King County Prosecutor charges of stalking, felony domestic violence and felony harassment on March 15, 2011.
In 2008 the suspect allegedly broke his ex-wife’s jaw (they were married at the time). Police were contacted but the woman only filed a disturbance report instead of an assault report. Soon after the couple separated and the woman began living at the Gatewood home while the suspect lived on Mercer Island, according to court papers.
His ex-wife filed a restraining order that, according to court documents, was repeatedly violated with visits and a barrage of threatening text messages, emails and phone calls over the next several years.
On March 10, 2011 the suspect was accused of threatening to kill Seattle Municipal Court Judge Kimi Kondo after she raised his bail amount on an assault charge. The suspect told a bail bondsman “I’m going to kill her tonight.”
The suspect spent two months in jail for the charges but, according to a Seattle Weekly story, was released after working his charges down to misdemeanors.
On May 11 the Mercer Island attorney was charged with felony harassment after a former female employee sought a civil anti-harassment order against him, according to court documents. The woman told police she had been harassed and assaulted by the victim in February 2011 but was too scared to file a police report. She decided to go to police in March after receiving a threatening letter from the suspect (while he was in King County Jail).
