Murder and arson charges against a 25-year-old Amazon software engineer were dropped Friday after new information came to light indicating he is not believed to be the suspect who set a deadly house fire in Wallingford in June, according to King County prosecutors.
Letian Shi was arrested July 10 and charged with first-degree murder and second-degree arson more than a month after firefighters found 72-year-old Susan Lisette Klee unconscious within 10 feet of her back door. She died two days later at Harborview Medical Center.
Shi pleaded not guilty to the charges on Monday, when his defense attorneys filed an objection to the finding of probable cause based on a statement written by a Seattle police homicide detective, saying the document contains “a significant number of material omissions that make it unreliable.”
In a 10-hour interview with detectives, Shi repeatedly asserted his innocence, said he was at home when the fire was set, and voluntarily offered passwords to his electronic devices to corroborate his whereabouts the night of June 3 and into the early morning hours of June 4, the defense objection says.
“Seattle Police have made an incorrect conclusion based off a rushed and racist misidentification,” wrote attorney Brooks de Peyster, who is representing Shi with co-counsel Rebecca Bradlow.
During Shi’s arraignment Monday, Superior Court Judge Brian McDonald denied a defense motion to release Shi on electronic home detention, court records show.
Four days later, prosecutors asked the court to dismiss the charges against Shi, and McDonald signed the order for his release, Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the King County prosecuting attorney’s office, said Saturday.
“As part of the detectives’ continuing investigation of this case, information has come to light that raises questions about the identity of the suspect in this case,” the motion for dismissal says. “Because of the new information that raises questions about the subject’s identity, the State moves to dismiss, without prejudice, these charges against Mr. Shi in the interest of justice and have him released from custody pending further investigation.”
In legal terms, dismissed without prejudice means prosecutors can refile the same case later if warranted by the police investigation.
Shi was released from the King County Jail just before 6:30 p.m. Friday, jail records show.
Seattle police did not directly respond to the defense's allegation of a racist misidentification in a statement Saturday afternoon. According to the department, homicide detectives were still working with prosecutors and the victim's family in the ongoing investigation.
Police ask anyone with information that could aid the investigation to call the Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000. Callers may remain anonymous.
The defense objection to probable cause includes a summary of facts based on discovery provided by the state and points to flaws in the police investigation.
Seattle firefighters were called to a rubbish fire at Sun Bear Park, near North 38th Street and Eastern Avenue North in Wallingford, around 12:30 a.m. on June 4. Twenty-five minutes later, they were dispatched to the fire at Klee’s house in the 3800 block of Sunnyside Avenue North, a couple of blocks from the park.
Based on private security camera footage, police determined someone with dark hair, wearing a dark jacket, was responsible for setting the fires, but the quality of the footage wasn’t good enough to make an identification.
Other surveillance footage obtained by police captured the suspected arsonist, who was holding a white bag, leading police to the Dick’s Drive-In in Wallingford, where investigators reviewed security footage from before the fires. Police identified a man who arrived on foot at 11:47 p.m. on June 3, then walked south on First Avenue North a few minutes later, as the likely suspect.
In a search of Dick’s transaction records, police determined the man bought two Dick’s Deluxe cheeseburgers with a Mastercard issued to “Shi Letian,” the defense objection says.
“Law enforcement was unable to identify or locate anyone named ‘Shi Letian.’ Detectives, without any other leads, decided to reverse the name and search for ‘Letian Shi,' ” according to the objection.
That led police to de Peyster and Bradlow’s client, who moved to Seattle in 2023, was a graduate student at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus, was employed by Amazon and was active in his University District church. Before his arrest, Shi lived at a church-affiliated communal international student house near Northeast 47th Street and 15th Avenue Northeast in the University District. He’d never been arrested before but had his identity stolen and reported it to police in early 2024, according to the defense.
Phone location data obtained by police showed Shi’s phone was at his home the night of June 3 and into June 4. Though police never interviewed his housemates about his whereabouts, defense investigators determined his roommates “have no reason to believe Mr. Shi was anywhere but at home” during the time before and after the Wallingford fires.
When police searched Shi’s home, they found “several credit and debit cards” but didn’t find a Mastercard, the objection says. Police also seized clothing from Shi and his roommates, but didn’t find a blue jacket like the one the man was wearing in the Dick’s footage, it says.
During his interview with police, Shi denied being anywhere but in his room and denied ever owning a Mastercard. The detectives told Shi it would “be irresponsible if they did not arrest him” because they believed the person responsible for the fires was a serial arsonist, according to the defense.
“It should be noted that since Mr. Shi’s arrest there have been multiple arsons in Seattle that bear similar circumstances as the arson that killed Ms. Klee,” though evidence about those fires hasn’t been disclosed to the defense, de Peyster wrote in the objection.
Four days after the fire that killed Klee, police responded to “suspicious writing” found on a van parked in the 2300 block of North 38th Street that read, “WATCH OUT XOXO.” Fingerprints taken from the van and a Dick’s Drive-In bag found at the scene of the Sun Bear Park fire were run through AFIS, the automated fingerprint identification system, the defense objection says.
AFIS examiners concluded neither set of prints matched Shi’s fingerprints, de Peyster wrote.
The state has not provided Shi’s defense attorneys with evidence connecting the Mastercard used at Dick’s to Shi, and Shi was never seen in the surveillance footage from dozens of cameras that blanket the four possible walking routes between his house and Dick’s, according to the defense.
“For there to be probable cause in this case, the State must reasonably show that Mr. Shi is the individual identified in the Dick’s surveillance footage,” de Peyster wrote. “The State cannot do this because Mr. Shi was never at Dick’s on June 3-4, 2025.”
The objection includes side-by-side photos of the man seen in the Dick’s footage and Shi and notes Shi has a narrower face, more prominent chin, wider nose and completely different hairline.
“These are not the same people,” de Peyster wrote, adding a photo comparison was not included in the probable cause statement even though police took “numerous photos of Mr. Shi after his arrest.”
“This comparison was hidden from the court,” he wrote in the objection. “This is omission of the most material fact in the case — the identity of the alleged arsonist.”
Police knew they needed to match the photo of the man seen at Dick’s with Shi and that “bias poisoned the identification analysis,” according to de Peyster.
“The police found an Asian male with dark hair and a reversed name and deemed it sufficient to move forward with life altering charges,” he wrote.
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