EVERETT – A Tacoma man faces life in prison after a Snohomish County jury this afternoon convicted him of aggravated murder in the shooting deaths at an Everett indoor marijuana farm.
Sarouen Phai, 25, wiped sweat from his hands with tissue before the jury was led into the room.
Jurors deliberated for about two hours Tuesday before reaching a decision. Phai glanced at jurors as they each acknowledged their verdict, convicting the Tacoma man.
Phai is scheduled to be sentenced April 10. He faces a mandatory life sentence for the 2007 deaths of Linda Nguyen and Kevin Meas.
Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty for Phai. The only other sentence for an aggravated murder conviction is life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Nguyen and Meas had moved to a house on Dexter Avenue in Everett just a couple months before they were killed. They were paid to care for an indoor marijuana growing operation. Nguyen’s brother and his girlfriend took care of an indoor pot farm at a nearby house on E. Beech Street. Detectives seized more than 1,100 plants from both houses.
Snohomish County deputy prosecutors Matthew Baldock and Edirin Okoloko told jurors that Phai and accomplice Areewa Saray planned to rob the house and shoot anyone who got in their way.
Nguyen, 20, was gunned down just as she answered the front door. Meas, 23, was shot to death in the basement.
Everett police detective Phil Erickson testified that Phai confessed to committing the murders a few months after the slayings. Police also learned that the men set fire to the car they drove to Everett and dumped the guns off a pier in Des Moines. Police tracked the car back to Phai’s cousin and recovered the guns from the water.
Saray, 21, also was convicted of aggravated murder. He was sentenced last month to life in prison without release.
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