Solved: Arsonist behind 1987 firefighter's death was only 12

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

EVERETT — It took 34 years for justice to chase down the arsonist who set the fire that destroyed the Everett Community College library and killed firefighter Gary Parks.

The culprit, it turns out, was then a troubled 12-year-old boy who struck the match during a burglary at the library and then disappeared into the night.

For 12,456 days, the firefighter’s widow was left to wonder. So, too, were friends, family and fellow firefighters, including those whose helmets began to melt as they retreated from an inferno that proved impossible to tame from the inside.

-snip-

On Thursday morning, in a Snohomish County courtroom a little more than two miles from where the fatal fire raged, long-denied suspicions were confirmed and became public record. Elmer Nash, now 47, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. A recently released convict with a long criminal history, Nash over the years repeatedly admitted setting the fire, including during lengthy interviews with Everett police detectives in 2017, court papers filed Wednesday say.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/solved-arsonist-behind-1987-firefighters-death-was-only-12/

[regnaD kciN]

1. I walked through that building the night before the fire...

...my now-wife was taking classes there, and I was waiting to pick her up from an evening class. (It wasn't just a library; it was also the college cafeteria/dining hall where concerts and other social events were held.) It was so weird to read about the fire, and realize that the room I'd walked across a day before was now gone.

I'm hoping the judge accepts the sentencing guidelines. While it's obvious the culprit is an habitual offender, the notion of giving someone an effective life sentence for a crime they committed before they were even a teenager seems utterly insane, although I'm sure it would be in accord with many peoples' sense of "justice" nowadays.