High-profile arson investigations in Everett and Seattle may have played a role in two alleged arsonists’ decisions to set fires in Snohomish County – and invited scrutiny that led to their arrests, arson experts said Friday.
The unrelated arson cases in Everett and Edmonds, which ended in arrests on Thursday, came during a summer marked by suspicious blazes that put Everett and Seattle on edge and police on alert.
Kenneth William Sloan, 20, and Mirza Akram, 37, made their first appearances in court Friday.
Sloan allegedly set fire to two abandoned homes in Edmonds on Thursday evening.
Akram was brought in after a six-week investigation into a fire that destroyed the Continental Spices market, a Pakistani grocery that he was buying. That fire isn’t related to any others, police say.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating whether the fires set in Edmonds are connected to those in Everett and Seattle.
“There’s no definitive link right now, but we’re still looking into it,” ATF spokeswoman Julianne Marshall said.
Headline-grabbing arsons can bring out other fire starters looking to take advantage of the publicity, experts said.
“Someone who is really thinking about how to get out of a failing business or offload property (may) set a fire in the midst of multiple fires to take advantage of the climate of fear,” said Dian Williams, president and founder of the Center for Arson Research in Philadelphia.
Publicity “can also serve as a stimulant for delinquents who think it’s lots of fun to set a fire and see it blamed on this mysterious arsonist,” she said.
Investigators who helped arrest Paul Keller in the early 1990s caught several fire starters who hadset blazes for their own purposes during their search for the serial arsonist. Keller was convicted of setting fires in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties.
“Most were opportunistic folks using events in the news media to benefit themselves,” said Lynnwood fire inspector LeRoy McNulty, who served on a task force that tracked down Keller. “That’s why we approach every fire like an individual fire. We don’t treat it as an arson spree.”
Keller “was an anomaly. He was a serial arsonist with his own purpose,” he said.
Although publicizing arsons may encourage copycat crimes, it also aids investigations, he said.
“(Thursday) night is a prime example of what that attention does. The people in Edmonds were keeping an eye on the vacant houses in the area,” McNulty said. “If the neighbors hadn’t noticed what they did, we may have missed that entirely.”
As firefighters were extinguishing a fire at an abandoned house in the 23500 block of 84th Avenue W., a column of smoke was spotted a couple of blocks away in the 8200 block of 234th Street SW.
A Block Watch captain told police she had seen a car parked near the rear of that house. She later identified the man next to the car as Sloan.
About 10 minutes later, neighbors reported smoke coming from the empty house.
Jeanine and Anthony Jansen waved down an officer after they spotted a person they later identified as Sloan watching firefighters at the second house.
Anthony Jansen and Edmonds Fire Department training chief Mark Correira chased after the man, who drove into the parking lot of the Alpenhaus Apartments. Correira detained Sloan until police arrived, according to court documents.
Sloan’s car was also seen at the first fire, according to witnesses.
Police arrested Sloan on suspicion of first-degree arson and booked him into Snohomish County Jail Friday morning. Bail was set at $500,000 in Everett District Court.
Sloan has a history of setting fires near his Edmonds home.
Four years ago, he was charged in juvenile court with reckless burning after he ignited a stack of wood pallets and a utility trailer at the back of the Country Farm Store, located just blocks from where he was arrested Thursday.
He also was charged with starting a fire behind Kmart. He reportedly watched as firefighters put out the flames, according to court documents.
Sloan also was charged with reckless burning in 1998 after he lit a bathroom soap dispenser on fire at College Place Middle School, where he was a student. Sloan told investigators he watched the fire and let the dispenser melt onto his shoe.
His mother reported that her son had started other fires while they lived in California. She told investigators that Sloan had been abused and suffered from depression.
Sloan also has a history of theft and drug abuse, according to court records.
Continental Spices manager Akram, 37, appeared in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Friday. A federal magistrate ordered that he be held without bail at the federal detention center in Seattle.
He allegedly recruited a friend to help him burn the store July 9 because he was hoping to use the fire insurance money to recoup business losses, according to a complaint filed Friday.
Akram was working to purchase the business at 315 E. Casino Road, which sells Middle Eastern spices and groceries. He owed about $32,000 on the store, its owners said.
A friend told investigators that Akram poured gasoline inside the store to start the blaze, and suggested it was Akram who spray-painted white crosses and an anti-Arab message inside to mislead police, the complaint says. The fire caused an estimated $90,000 in damage.
Akram’s friend, a sailor at Naval Station Everett, has not been arrested in connection with the fire, according to the ATF.
“It should be very apparent to those committing these crimes that they are being seriously investigated,” Everett police Sgt. Boyd Bryant said. “We have a lot of resources dedicated to finding out who is responsible.”
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.
Reporter Katherine Schiffner: 425-339-3436 or schiffner@ heraldnet.com.
Herald writer Jim Haley contributed to this report.
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