Murder, arson charges filed in Kirkland slayings

A man accused of stabbing to death a family of four and then burning their Kirkland home to hide the crime has been charged with four counts of aggravated first-degree murder, which could bring the death penalty.

Police say 24-year-old Conner Michael Schierman told them he drank 2-½ bottles of vodka, blacked out and then awoke in the victims' home the morning of July 17 to find the bodies of two women and two young children.

But in announcing the charges Monday, King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng said there was evidence the slayings were premeditated. He declined to elaborate and said his office would take up to 30 days to decide whether to seek the death penalty in the case.

The only other sentence possible for aggravated first-degree murder is life in prison without parole.

Schierman, who is being held on $10 million bail, is to be arraigned Monday. He also is charged with first-degree arson for the fire that destroyed the family's home at 9540 Slater Ave. N.E.

Maleng's voice cracked as he called the killings "one of the most horrific and outrageous cases" in the county's history.

"The enormity of the loss is beyond human understanding. ... We're all left with a heavy heart," Maleng said during a news conference.

Among other things, Maleng said he would look for "so-called mitigating factors within the life of the defendant" as well as possible motives when deciding whether to seek capital punishment. When asked if Schierman's blackout claim could be a mitigating factor, Maleng would say only that he was planning "a careful review."

Schierman's attorney, James Conroy, did not return calls seeking comment Monday.

New court documents provide more detail of what police think happened in the hours leading up to the fire that destroyed the home in a quiet Kirkland neighborhood.

Once firefighters had doused the blaze they discovered the bodies of 28-year-old Olga Milkin, her sister, Lyubov Botvina, 24, and Milkin's two sons, 5-year-old Justin and 3-year-old Andrew. The victims all died from wounds inflicted by a knife, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office.

According to court documents, Schierman said that after a night of drinking vodka he awoke from an alcohol-induced blackout to the bloody scene in the victims' home. Detectives say he took a shower and changed into clothes he found in the home. He then drove to a nearby convenience store where he purchased two 1-gallon containers that he filled with gasoline, the documents say.

Video from a convenience-store surveillance camera shows him filling two gas containers less than half an hour before the fire was reported, according to the documents.

Schierman returned to the home and doused the interior as well as the bodies with gasoline and set them ablaze, the documents say.

Investigators said they also found a hunting knife believed to be the murder weapon in the victims' home.

Two witnesses told police they saw a man matching Schierman's description walking away from the victims' home carrying what appeared to be a red gasoline can, charging papers say.

The killings occurred just weeks after Schierman moved in across the street from the family of National Guard Sgt. Leonid Milkin. There has been no information released about whether Schierman had any contact with the victims before the day they died.

The last time King County prosecutors sought the death penalty against a defendant was after the arrest of Green River killer Gary L. Ridgway. But Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder in 2003 after prosecutors agreed to stop seeking the death penalty in exchange for his cooperation in closing unsolved slayings.

Since then, lawyers around the state have argued that it's fundamentally unfair for prosecutors to attempt to seek the death penalty against their clients when such a prolific killer as Ridgway was spared.

Yelena Shidlovsky, Olga Milkin's sister, said Monday that her family would meet to discuss whether they favored the death penalty in Schierman's case. "We have not discussed at all that issue," she said.

This report includes information from Seattle Times Eastside bureau reporter Peyton Whitely.

Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704