A 30-year-old Alaska man convicted of murder after setting a Seattle motel on fire in 2020, killing two, as revenge for a stolen laptop was sentenced Friday to 40 years imprisonment.
The sentencing hearing in King County Superior Court came nearly six years after Anchorage resident Jesse Samuel Puff, then 24, carried six jugs of gasoline into a rear stairwell of the Hillside Motel, started the July 13 blaze and ran away.
There were at least a dozen people inside the motel shortly before 5 a.m. when the fire started on Aurora Avenue North, sending some leaping from a fourth-floor window.
Rosanna McCurry, 32, and Shadrack Baird, 24, died at Harborview Medical Center. Three others were seriously hurt.
Seattle police determined Puff called 911 at least twice two days before the fire to report someone had broken into his van and stolen his laptop, and that he had tracked it to the Hillside Motel. Security footage showed a man later identified as Puff loitering outside the motel July 13, 2020, and later carrying jugs of liquid into the stairwell where the fire started, court records show.
The footage showed “a huge flash,” then Puff running away with his shoes and legs on fire, according to court records.
A King County Superior Court jury convicted Puff last month of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree arson and three counts of second-degree assault.
Inside a downtown Seattle courtroom on Friday, the mothers of McCurry and Baird described years of heartbreak and grief. King County prosecutors and Puff’s defense attorneys then sparred over what Puff’s sentence should be.
A first-degree murder conviction in Washington state carries a sentence of 20 years to life imprisonment.
Tina Smith described McCurry, her eldest daughter, to Judge Melinda Young as “the absolute rock of (their) entire family.” McCurry was a protector, leader and best friend to her three younger siblings, including her brother who was inside the motel with McCurry when the fire broke out.
Smith said her son remains physically and psychologically scarred by the fire and losing McCurry, who was “his whole world.” Once an avid musician, his hand injuries left him unable to play the guitar or the drums. He feels afraid every time he hears sirens, and memories of seeing his sister engulfed in flames still haunt him, Smith said.
“We’re left trying to pick up the pieces of a life that will never be whole again,” Smith said. “Over a laptop.”
Karen Kenyon said Baird, her first child, faced life’s challenges with tenacity. He loved rock, blues, metal and rap music and wrote his own lyrics to express himself. Kenyon said her son was beloved by his younger sister and was a compassionate “protector of the underdogs” who always stood up for students being bullied at school.
Kenyon said she has forgiven Puff, who apologized to her during trial, but said he needed “much time to contemplate the validity of his choices.”
Puff’s attorneys, Jesse Dubow and Sarah Batson, argued Puff should be sentenced to about 25 years, below the standard range for his charges.
Batson said Puff was experiencing worsening depression, delusions and hallucinations in 2020. His girlfriend at the time gave him the idea to start the fire, Batson said.
“He believed he was doing the right thing,” Dubow said. “That doesn’t minimize the impact on the victims or their families or that Jesse warrants punishment, but it does mitigate his responsibility and culpability.”
Senior Deputy Prosecutor Terence Carlstrom argued Puff should be sentenced to 60 years and said it was Puff — not his former girlfriend — who chose to start the fire.
There was also no evidence Puff was mentally ill when he called 911 or when he was interviewed by police after his arrest, and he was only diagnosed after he was booked into jail, Carlstrom said.
Puff apologized to the families of those killed and injured in the fire. While his former girlfriend influenced him, he said he made his own choices that day and hoped Friday’s hearing would offer the families “healing and peace.”
“If I could take their place, I would, because they do not deserve the fate they received because of my mistakes and because of my terrible choices,” Puff said. “Never in a second in my heart did I want for this to happen.”
Before issuing a sentence, Young said she had to balance Puff’s need to face serious consequences for causing “tremendous harm” with the circumstances he was experiencing in 2020.
Jail records also showed Puff has a serious mental health condition, and that he spent much of the last five years hearing voices and attempting to hurt himself, Young said.
“It is very clear to me that Rosanna and Shadrack were loved and that their lives mattered, and that what happened to them wasn’t fair,” Young said. “I don’t have an adequate way to express my sadness at what they endured.”
Young then sentenced Puff to serve two consecutive terms of 20 years in prison for each count of first-degree murder. She also banned Puff from ever contacting the victims or their families and ordered him to spend six years in community custody after his release from prison.
Outside the courtroom, Kenyon looked one more time at photos she brought of her son before tucking them carefully into her bag. One picture showed a grinning, teenaged Baird wearing a suit, which he did every Friday of the school year for fun, Kenyon said.
Baird’s younger sister, now two years older than he was in 2020, still struggles over his death. Kenyon said she also “felt cheated” out of seeing her “charming, funny, animated” son grow up alongside his sister.
“I know he would have been an amazing young man,” she said.
For Smith, the outcome of Friday’s hearing left her numb.
Puff’s sentence included 70 months' imprisonment for each count of second-degree assault, to be served concurrently with his 40-year sentence for murder. The sentence seemed to spare Puff from facing consequences for seriously hurting other people besides her daughter and Kenyon’s son, Smith said.
“I feel like (the survivors) who were fighting for their lives didn’t get justice,” she said.
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