Witness casts doubt on arson

A defense expert told a Spokane jury Thursday he couldn’t conclude from federal investigators’ reports that a Fairfield, Wash., warehouse fire last summer was arson-caused.

Ken Janes, a fire investigator from Tigard, Ore., testified as a defense witness for firefighter Kenneth Southwell, who’s on trial in U.S. District Court for allegedly starting the Sept. 1 fire at the Heart Seed Co.

There were no injuries or loss of life, but the fire caused an estimated $2.6 million in damages.

Eight days later, Southwell, a firefighter and director of Emergency Medical Services for Spokane County Fire District 2, confessed to using barbecue lighter fluid and his cigarette lighter to start the blaze. His attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Kim Deater, told the jury in her delayed opening statement that Southwell suffers from a sleep disorder and mental condition that made him susceptible to making a “false confession.”

“The issue of insanity will be for you to decide,” Deater told the jury.

Southwell’s mental and emotional instability combined “to create a desire to please others, particularly those in positions of authority,” the federal defender told the jury before calling Janes as a witness.

His testimony was an attempt by the defense to throw doubt on the prosecution’s case, built around Southwell’s admission that he started the fire as a grudge against a man who worked at the seed company.

Southwell confessed on Sept. 8 to Lance Hart and Darrell Bone, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Hart is a certified fire investigator, and both agents are members of the ATF’s National Response Team, which responds to major fires and explosions.

The team was activated to investigate the fire that destroyed Heart Seed, its equipment and a capacity-amount of newly harvested Kentucky bluegrass seed. The ATF team concluded the fire was arson-caused.

Janes, hired by the Federal Defenders Office to review the ATF report of the fire, was critical of the work product and said federal investigators hadn’t properly ruled out other possible causes, including an electrical malfunction or overheated equipment bearings.

Janes said the ATF investigative report did not determine whether combustible materials were near a “clipper mill,” a large piece of equipment in the warehouse used to process and clean newly harvested grass seed.

The reports also didn’t include diagram measurements of the clipper mill’s distance from windows and there was no data indicating if investigators had ruled out the machine as the cause of the fire, Janes testified.

Deater asked the fire investigator if he could rule out the clipper mill as the potential cause of the fire. “I can’t do it in this case,” he responded.

Janes also testified that federal investigators, in his opinion, didn’t properly photograph and analyze broken glass. Such an examination may have provided clues to whether the glass was broken prior to the fire, providing unique smoke shadows.

“The document I have, in and of itself, does not lead to the conclusion we have an incendiary fire,” Janes testified.

His review of the ATF reports led him to conclude there may have been two separate fires in the warehouse, most likely human-caused.

“I would have to leave this fire as one of undetermined cause,” Jane testified.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice cross-examined the defense witness, who conceded he didn’t witness the fire, visit the scene or conduct any interviews.

“The only determination I made was that I was unable to make a determination,” Janes said.