Web page indicates suspect was emerging from troubles

During the early morning of June 26, Conner Schierman posted what would become his last message on his personal Web page.

"What am I?" he asked.

According to police, Schierman, 24, is a senseless killer who stabbed to death two women and two boys in their Kirkland home, then set it ablaze to try to hide his crimes.

According to his friends, Schierman is a gregarious jokester who had just signed his first lease for a Kirkland apartment, making his rocky life of drug and alcohol addictions seem a thing of the past.

"I brought him a housewarming gift last Saturday. He was so excited about the chance for a new life," said a 24-year-old woman who is one of his closest friends. She agreed to speak only if her name was not used.

As police search for a motive and sift through Schierman's meager possessions at the Kirkland duplex, perhaps the most revelatory clues, for now, may be gleaned from his own words.

In late June, he set up a free account at MySpace.com, a wildly popular Internet site where people post information, pictures and videos about themselves and invite friends, even strangers, to pore through the material.

"I am able to write things I would not normally say, and put it on a website where anyone can look at it. That seems contradicting, but it is working for me right now," Schierman wrote.

The 6-foot, 215-pound graduate of Bellevue's Newport High School painted himself as a man of wild contrasts. He liked to listen to the heavy roar of Metallica as well as the piano ballads of Billy Joel. Schierman's favorite cable-television show was "The Ultimate Fighter," a violent tough-man competition, yet he said he cried watching the movie "Steel Magnolias," the story of six women in small-town Louisiana.

"I am loved and cherished, looked up to and respected," he wrote. "I am also feared and mistrusted, misunderstood or misinterpreted."

"I do not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it," he wrote.

Court records show his mother received primary custody of her two children, Conner and a younger sister, Kinsey, now 20, after a divorce in 1995. His father was described as an alcoholic who was tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Beginning in high school and for six years, Schierman worked at a Bellevue pet business, where he eventually was promoted to assistant manager.

Carl McGavran, who has managed Sierra Fish and Pets in the Factoria area for 23 years, described Schierman as a close friend who had long struggled with substance abuse.

"He partied. He drank," McGavran said.

As a result, Schierman frequently failed to show up for work. "He'd say he blacked out," McGavran said.

McGavran said he fired Schierman a couple of times, but always rehired the good-natured teen following his promise to be more responsible.

He permanently fired Schierman two years ago when he failed to show up to work for a week.

The manager said he's astounded at the events and the arrest. "It blows me away — I'm still in shock," he said. "We went fishing together. I shot pool with him a month ago."

Schierman sought help at Lakeside-Milam Recovery Center in Kirkland, a friend said Wednesday. After successfully completing the program, he moved to a halfway house in Kingsgate and got a new job at Carillon Point Properties on the Kirkland waterfront.

About two weeks ago, he moved into the Kirkland duplex on Slater Avenue with a friend from the halfway house. His sister and her roommate were already living in the other apartment.

Schierman was in a great mood, two friends said. The motto at the top of his Web page, written in German, translates to "I am loved."

He admitted to an occasional drink but denied abusing drugs or alcohol, they said.

There had "been dark days in the past" but Schierman had recently spent a lot of time practicing pool and was hoping to play competitively in tournaments, said a friend who, like the others, would speak only if his name was not used.

By friends' accounts, Schierman struggled to find his equilibrium.

In his last post on his Web page, he wrote of overcoming his demons.

"To know what I am capable of is a tremendous power," he wrote, "and I only have to 'be' to use it."

Peyton Whitely: pwhitely@seattletimes.com or 206-464-2259

Times staff reporter Natalie Singer contributed to this report.