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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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House searched in Sleepy Hollow Fire investigation

The Columbian
Published:

CASHMERE — Investigators searched a house in Cashmere and seized electronic equipment as part of an investigation into the start of the Sleepy Hollow Fire.

No arrests have been made as of Friday, but an 18-year-old Cashmere man told The Wenatchee World that he was questioned. The man, who did not want to be identified, provided a copy of the search warrant signed by Chelan County District Court Judge Roy Fore on Thursday afternoon.

So far, that is the only search warrant issued and the only home searched in the fire investigation, which is being conducted jointly by the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office and state Department of Natural Resources, said Dave Helvey, chief of patrol for the Sheriff’s Office. He said he knows of no other search warrants that are being planned.

He added that, “At this point, the young man has been very cooperative with officers.”

Investigators have ruled out a natural cause for the fire that burned 29 homes on the northwestern edge of Wenatchee. So it is believed to be human-caused, Helvey said.

“But whether it was intentional or accidental, we still don’t know at this point,” he said.

The search warrant authorized the search of a house on Sunset Highway in Cashmere and the cell phone of a man living there. It states that there is probable cause for first-degree arson.

The warrant specifically allowed the seizure of the cell phone, computers, laptop, electronic storage devices, pictures, video files, address book and contacts, text messages, GPS location data, two 2-inch screw earrings, and “any other electronic data relevant to the investigation of the fire that ignited near Sleepy Hollow Road on Sunday, June 28.”

The man named in the search warrant said he was pulled over by an undercover investigator in Cashmere on Thursday, taken in the officer’s car to the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office building in Cashmere and questioned about a video he took of the fire in its early stages. His phone was then seized and he was released.

The man said he returned home to find eight officers in plain clothes searching his room in the house where he lives with family.

The man told The World that he had been swimming with a friend near the Sleepy Hollow Bridge Sunday afternoon. They were driving home along Sleepy Hollow Road when they saw a column of smoke, went around a corner and saw the fire right along the road and going up the hillside.

He said he called 911 as his friend pulled the car over to the shoulder, then he got out of the car and took video with his cell phone. When fire trucks started arriving, they left the scene to get out of their way, he said.

“I called 911 and took a video, and now I’m being accused of burning down half of Wenatchee,” he said.

Reach Michelle McNiel at 509-664-7152 or mcnielwenatcheeworld.com. Follow her on Twitter at MichelMcNielWW.


©2015 The Wenatchee World (Wenatchee, Wash.)

Visit The Wenatchee World (Wenatchee, Wash.) at www.wenatcheeworld.com

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Topics: t000037113,t000198107,t000040410,t000012815,t000003086,t000012821,t000205517

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