Hunt is on: Who torched the Street of Dreams?

By Steve Miletich

Seattle Times staff reporter

Working with few clues, federal investigators face a daunting task as they
try to determine whether a shadowy group of radical environmentalists
torched three multimillion-dollar homes along a Street of Dreams in
Snohomish County on Monday.

Although a spray-painted banner left at the scene contained the initials
of the Earth Liberation Front, it took nearly a decade of groundwork in a
previous case before investigators cracked a Pacific Northwest cell of the
ELF responsible for more than a dozen arsons beginning in 1996.

The homes gutted in Monday's inferno had drawn tens of thousands of people
last summer who paid to gawk at their architecture, interiors and sheer
size.

The fires left law-enforcement officials questioning whether they were
timed to coincide with jury deliberations in the federal trial of an
alleged ELF member accused of helping set the 2001 fire that gutted the UW
Center for Urban Horticulture.

"I guess you could say we're not surprised," said Mark Bartlett, a senior
federal prosecutor involved in the UW-related trial.

The pre-dawn fires in the Maltby area of Snohomish County destroyed the
three homes and damaged a fourth, and investigators were looking into the
possibility that an attempt was made to torch a fifth house. None of the
homes was occupied, and no one was injured in the three-alarm fire that
shot flames 100 feet into the air.

The FBI is investigating the fires as a possible "domestic terrorism act,"
said FBI spokesman Fred Gutt in Seattle. The Snohomish County sheriff's
Office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives
also are participating as part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The fires were reminiscent of what FBI officials said was the last arson
in the region possibly linked to the ELF. In January 2006, a luxury home
under construction on Camano Island was burned and a pink-dyed sheet with
a spray-painted message -- which investigators would not reveal -- was
left at the front gate.

The Camano Island incident, as well as a string of Snohomish County arsons
and attempted fires set to new, unoccupied homes in 2004, are still under
investigation, Gutt said. No arrests have been made.

ELF and a similar organization, the Animal Liberation Front, have been
linked to politically motivated arson and sabotage around the Western
United States. Between 1996 and 2001, attacks caused tens of millions of
dollars in damage to targets including a timber-company headquarters and a
Vail, Colo., ski lodge.

Part of the challenge, Gutt said, is that ELF is "not really an
organization."

"It's a leaderless ideology," he said. "Unlike traditional organized
crime, it's a different animal. So anyone inspired by their message who
commits violence against people or property ... that's an ELF act."

The FBl considers such acts terrorism, Gutt said, because "you're
committing an unlawful act to further a political or social cause."

At the end of the day, Gutt said, "We look at, 'What motivates the crime?' "

Officials said Monday's fires did $7 million in damage to the Street of
Dreams, a row of luxury model homes that some 90,000 people toured last
summer. The homes were touted as including environmentally "green"
features such as formaldehyde-free materials, energy-efficient appliances
and landscaping that included native plants.

But the banner left at the scene, shown in a KING-5 video, challenged
builders' assertion that the homes featured environmentally responsible
construction methods.

It read: "Built Green? Nope black! McMansions in RCDs r not green. ELF"

The initials "RCD" refer to "rural cluster development."

The damaged homes, part of the Quinn's Crossing development near Highway
522, were between 4,200 and 4,750 square feet in size, with prices close
to $2 million.

The devastation was a blow to the owners of the properties, which were for
sale.

"It's sad. It's just a shock. I don't know what to tell you," said Grey
Lundberg of CMI Homes, based in Bellevue, as he looked at the smoking
remains of an award-winning home built by his company.

Lundberg said the homes had video-surveillance systems, but the one at his
property had been turned off, since it was believed it wasn't needed.

Lundberg said he and other developers at the site had worked hard to build
homes that were as environmentally friendly as possible, filled with such
features as high-efficiency insulation and recycled materials.

"We're just trying to make a statement that we can do better," he said.

Even so, Quinn's Crossing had earlier drawn opposition from neighbors who
said its septic systems could damage critical wetlands needed to protect
an aquifer used by about 20,000 people in the area and could harm streams
used by chinook salmon.

The Snohomish County Council approved the project in March 2007.

Link to UW arson trial?

Monday's fires, reported about 4 a.m., had reverberations hours later at
the Tacoma trial of Briana Waters, 32, who testified last week that she
had nothing to do with the UW arson. Her attorneys asked the judge for a
mistrial, arguing that news of the fires could influence the jury. If
convicted she faces 35 years in prison.

Jurors were called in as a group by U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess
and told there was a news story that could potentially influence their
deliberations in the case. They were asked whether anyone felt they could
no longer continue as jurors. No one spoke up, and Burgess denied the
defense request.

The jury, which is to resume deliberations this morning, was told by
Burgess at the end of the day to avoid broadcast and print news.

The spray-painted banner with the ELF's initials left at the scene Monday
made no reference to Waters' trial.

But Bartlett, the senior federal prosecutor, noted that in a 2001
incident, ELF members torched 35 SUVs at a Eugene, Ore., car dealership to
support a Eugene anarchist about to go on trial in an earlier arson case.

Neighbors' concerns

At the site of Monday's fires, neighbor Kim Quenzer said she and her
husband suspected ELF when they saw the magnitude of the flames.

"We worried about that when we built this place," she said of her home,
because similar arson acts had been claimed by the ELF. "You just wonder
what they're thinking. They're not helping their cause."

Builder Todd Lockie, who lost his Craftsman home, fumed about the
possibility ELF was responsible, calling the group "evil."

His house featured an entryway waterfall with recirculating water, an
outdoor living area with fireplace and a powder room with custom
leaf-print Venetian plaster walls.

The $1.9 million house, dubbed Copper Falls, had an alarm system, but
Lockie said he turned it off because real-estate agents didn't want to set
it off while they were showing the house.

"I'm kicking myself," he said.

Seattle Times reporters Peyton Whitely, Jack Broom, Sonia Krishnan, Nicole
Tsong, Amy Roe, Hal Bernton and Mike Carter contributed to this story.

Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 or smiletich@seattletimes.com