Peninsula Daily News and other news reports
PORT LUDLOW – A fire that destroyed condominiums in December 2004 was set for revenge by a convicted drug addict who imagined that another man was sexually involved with his girlfriend, authorities said Thursday.
“He set [the other man’s] grandma’s car on fire underneath where she lived,” said Jefferson County Undersheriff Tim Perry.
Kevin Graesser, 29, formerly of Port Hadlock and Port Townsend, is in custody in Anchorage, Alaska, being held for investigation of arson in a fire that caused $4 million in damage to Admiralty II condominiums.
Investigators said Graesser set the car on fire as an act of revenge against the woman’s grandson.
The flames quickly spread to the complex.
Phillip Downey, who had been staying with his grandmother, Vivian Hayter, attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings with Graesser, according to court documents.
Investigators said Downey told them that Graesser feared he was trying to sleep with Graesser’s girlfriend and began threatening him.
He said Graesser had slashed the tires of cars that were linked to Downey in days prior to the fire.
Graesser “made incriminating remarks,” Perry said, while he was talking to a friend in Port Hadlock from the King County Jail in Seattle.
The conversation was taped, as are all others at the jail.
On the recording, investigators said, Graesser said he thought his girlfriend had been sexually involved with Downey.
“He got to thinking about it and said he freaked out,” and lit the car on fire, Perry said.
“In actuality, he [the other man] wasn’t sleeping with his girlfriend.”
The fire destroyed a fourplex of condos and two others were severely scorched and smoke-damaged, Perry said.
Graesser, who was found hiding in a village north of Anchorage, is expected to be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tacoma.
He is still in Alaska, pending extradition proceedings.
If convicted of arson, he could be sentenced to five to 20 years in federal prison.
