Arson suspect plans to enter insanity plea

Firefighter and accused arsonist Kenneth Southwell will claim he was temporarily insane when he started, then helped battle, a $2.6 million warehouse fire last summer in the town of Fairfield, a federal jury was told Tuesday.

Southwell’s attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Kim Deater, argued the temporary insanity defense after U.S. District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle refused earlier this month to suppress a tape-recorded confession by the firefighter.

The jury is expected to hear the taped confession before deciding whether Southwell could form the criminal intent necessary to commit arson, beyond a reasonable doubt.

After jury selection Monday, Southwell went on trial Tuesday on a charge of malicious use of fire to damage property involved in interstate commerce.

If convicted, the 46-year-old firefighter and adult-home operator faces somewhere between five and 20 years in prison.

His four separate confessions all came on Sept. 9 – eight days after a multiple-alarm Labor Day fire destroyed the Heart Seed Co. and its near-capacity contents of Kentucky Bluegrass seed.

His confessions came after he was summoned to the Spokane office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for follow-up questioning by ATF agents who spotted inconsistencies, including Southwell’s whereabouts when he called in a second fire alarm.

The ATF’s National Response Team, comprised of experts trained to determine the cause and origin of fire, was brought to Fairfield to investigate the warehouse fire, reported at 5:25 a.m. by a newspaper carrier.

The crop, mostly harvested from North Idaho grass growers, was destined for markets in other states and Canada.

In an opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice told a 12-member jury that Southwell deliberately started the warehouse fire after starting five smaller fires in a vacant house in Fairfield.

“He set the fire because of a grudge or ill will,” Rice told the jury.

Southwell’s ex-wife had married Frank Ottosen, who worked at the seed company, Rice said.

“He has ill feelings toward Mr. Ottosen because he married Mr. Southwell’s ex-wife, and they had a child together,” the prosecutor said in explaining a possible motive for the fire.

In his confession, Southwell told ATF agents that Ottosen “gets the breaks in life and he (Southwell) doesn’t get any breaks,” Rice said.

On the day of the fire, the chief and assistant chief of Fire District 2 were away on vacation over the three-day Labor Day weekend. Southwell, the district’s director of emergency medical service, was the acting chief and “incident commander” at the fire, Rice said.

At the same time, the prosecutor said, Southwell was at risk of losing his EMT director’s post for the district because he didn’t meet a job requirement of having a high school diploma.

“He thought Frank Ottosen was behind getting him kicked off the fire department,” Rice said.

Work for the rural fire department “was Kenneth Southwell’s life,” he said. “It was that important that every time there was a fire or a medical emergency, he was there.

“He has saved people’s lives,” Rice said. “He was very good at what he was doing, and on the day of the fire he became the hero for the day.”

The defense attorney didn’t make an opening statement to the jury on Tuesday, reserving that right for the start of the defense case, which will begin after the prosecution rests later this week.

Rice told jurors that the defense will attempt to convince them that Southwell had a mental disease when he started the fire. Both sides are expected to call psychiatrists to buttress their opposing views about Southwell’s mental health.

“There was no severe mental disease or defect,” the prosecutor said. “He appreciated the nature and quality of his acts or the wrongfulness of those acts.”

Jack Morris, the president of Heart Seed, was the first prosecution witness, telling the jury that Ottosen and seven other employees lost their jobs after the fire.

“It could not have been at a worse time for us,” said Morris, of Worley, Idaho.

Heart Seed sold $2 million to $3 million a year in grass seed. Insurance paid $900,000 for seed destroyed in the fire, but Morris said he contends that is less than half the market value of the crop.

Insurance also paid $1.5 million for the building and machinery destroyed in the fire, Morris testified.

“There is still money owed, in our opinion,” he told the jury without giving his total estimate of the loss.

After leaving the courtroom, Morris refused to answer questions, including how the fire is affecting the company’s processing of this year’s grass seed crop.