A 49-year-old Issaquah woman is accused of killing her roommate with an ax while he slept, then lighting his body on fire, according to King County prosecutors.
Kimberly Feyhl, who is also known as Kimberly Seawright, was arrested Sept. 16 outside the apartment she shared with Richard Schnepf, 43, her roommate and on-again, off-again boyfriend, and charged two days later with premeditated first-degree murder and first-degree arson, charging papers say. Prosecutors further allege the murder and arson charges are crimes of domestic violence.
Feyhl remains jailed in lieu of $3 million bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.
Firefighters with Eastside Fire & Rescue responded to an audible fire alarm at the Rose Crest Apartments in the 300 block of Shangri-La Way Northwest a little before 8 a.m. on Sept. 16 and were greeted by a complex maintenance worker, the charges say. He escorted firefighters into a smoke-filled unit and directed them to a back bedroom, where a man — later identified as Schnepf — was found dead with a large wound to his head, according to charging papers.
The fire was put out before it could spread by the apartment’s sprinkler system.
Firefighters left the apartment and summoned Issaquah police to the scene. While waiting for officers to arrive, firefighters stopped a woman, later identified as Feyhl, from walking away and checked her out for smoke inhalation, the charges say.
According to the charges, Feyhl admitted to starting the fire and responded “yes” when asked if she had anything to do with her roommate’s death.
After her arrest, Feyhl was taken to the Issaquah Police Department, where she told investigators God told her to kill Schnepf because he was a demon and planned to kill her, the charges say. After she spent the previous night waiting for Schnepf to come into her room to kill her, Feyhl told detectives, she got an ax, went into his bedroom, struck him in the head multiple times as he was sleeping, then doused him with rubbing alcohol and lit him on fire, according to the charges.
Investigators later found a bottle of rubbing alcohol on Feyhl’s bed and an ax with a bloody blade under her mattress, the charges say.
An autopsy determined Schnepf died from sharp force injuries to the head, which caused skull fractures and severe brain injury, according to charging papers.
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