Did drunken blackout lead to Kirkland deaths?

Conner Schierman says he woke up from one nightmare to another Monday morning — from a drunken blackout to a blood-soaked Kirkland home and the slashed bodies of two women and two young boys, according to detectives.

Schierman, 24, said he found himself covered in blood "amongst the deceased," according to documents filed in King County Superior Court Thursday. His face and neck were deeply scratched and his left arm bore a puncture wound.

Schierman, who was arrested Wednesday and who lived across the street from the home, has said he has no recollection of what happened. But a law-enforcement source said he had enough of his wits about him to shower off the blood, steal some clean clothing, douse the home with gasoline and set it ablaze to try to cover up the killings.

"This is a horrendous crime," Senior King County Prosecutor Scott O'Toole said after Schierman's appearance in court Thursday. The prosecutor said the wounds on Schierman indicated a struggle as the victims "fought in their defense."

District Court Judge D. Mark Eide set bail at $4 million and set an arraignment hearing for 1:30 p.m. Monday. O'Toole said he will file four counts of aggravated first-degree murder and one count of aggravated arson Monday morning. If convicted, Schierman could face the death penalty.

At Thursday's hearing, family members and friends of the suspect wept as Schierman — wearing a T-shirt stating he was an "Ultra Security Inmate" — was led into the glass-walled courtroom in the King County Correctional Facility in downtown Seattle. Other friends put their hands in front of cameras as two women in the gallery buried their faces in their hands and cried.

Schierman did not speak. His court-appointed attorney, James Conroy, objected after prosecutors presented evidence to hold Schierman in custody until Monday's hearing. He was overruled.

Afterward, Conroy called the slayings a "tragic case," and declined to say anything else.

The remains of 28-year-old Olga Milkin and her sister, Lyubov Botvina, 24, were found in an upstairs bedroom of the heavily damaged home. The fire, which was reported just before 11:30 a.m. Monday, was considered suspicious from the outset. There was no 911 call from the home and no evidence that the victims had tried to escape the flames.

Autopsies showed both women suffered multiple stab wounds to "the upper body, neck and head," according to court documents. The remains of the two children, Justin Milkin, 5, and his 3-year-old brother, Andrew, were found in an adjacent hallway.

Justin's wounds were similar to those suffered by his mother, according to the documents. Andrew Milkin's throat was cut.

So far, detectives have no motive for the crime and have uncovered nothing to link the suspect to the victims.

"It is going to be extremely difficult to determine motive," said O'Toole, the prosecutor. "The damage to the victims is pretty horrendous and pretty complete."

Olga Milkin's husband, Sgt. Leonid Milkin of the Army National Guard, returned from duty in Iraq to his burned-out home Thursday. Wearing Army fatigues, Milkin was brought in a black SUV to the home, where detectives gave him a brief tour. He spent a few moments at the makeshift memorial near the house where visitors had placed flowers and the family had posted photos of the victims.

Sgt. Milkin returned to the memorial in the afternoon. He embraced several family members and hugged one woman for a long time as she sobbed on his shoulder. Family members later said the woman was Olga Milkin's mother.

Some family members said they suspected foul play from the start.

"We never believed it was just a house fire," said John Petrus, a brother-in-law to the slain women. Petrus is married to Vita, one of the women's sisters. "She would have jumped out the windows. They would have gotten out."

Vita and John said it was difficult to believe only one person was involved with the slayings.

"Olga was very tough," John Petrus said. He believed both women would have fought anyone who was trying to harm them or the children.

Vita Petrus, 27, said her sister had been excited about her husband's scheduled homecoming from Iraq in about a month and a half.

John Petrus said Leonid "has been very strong through all of this. He is probably holding up better than we are."

Memorial services for the family will take place at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at The City Church, 9051 132nd Ave. N.E., in Kirkland.

Schierman had moved into the neighborhood about two weeks ago. He was a self-described recovering alcoholic and drug addict who had been a patient at a rehabilitation home until about 17 months ago. He had worked at a pet store and was a maintenance worker in Kirkland. He has no criminal record.

He came to the attention of detectives shortly after the bodies were discovered by firefighters. Two women in the neighborhood had reported seeing a man near the home who had what they described as a scratch on his face and a distinctive tattoo on his left arm. The scratch matched a wound on Schierman's face and he has a green dragon tattoo on his left shoulder, O'Toole said.

Schierman initially told detectives he had been hurt in an early-morning fight at a nearby convenience store, and "video cameras proved this to be inaccurate," according to court documents.

After being read his rights, the documents say, he said he drank in excess Sunday night and early Monday and blacked out. "He awoke later covered in blood in the victim's house amongst the deceased."

He told of then "dousing the house with gasoline and lighting it on fire in an attempt to conceal" the slayings, according to the documents.

A police dog reacted to the presence of gasoline in the suspect's house, according to a law-enforcement source.

O'Toole said he doubts the story of a blackout.

However, Dr. Donal F. Sweeney, a national expert on alcohol-induced behavior, said blackouts can induce ordinary people to commit unimaginable acts.

"You become a lesser human being. You lose memory and time and all judgment," Sweeney said. "You don't know what you're doing."

Sweeney, a California physician who specializes in addiction medicine, said blackouts typically last no more than six hours, depending on how fast the body metabolizes alcohol.

Unlike people who pass out from drinking, blacked-out drinkers are often able to walk, drive and even talk. However, they are unable to process current actions — they have no real-time memory — and they simultaneously lose all inhibitions.

While some drinkers have argued they are not responsible for their actions in a blackout, a landmark New York criminal case in 1994 determined that blackouts were not sufficient legal grounds to support a temporary-insanity plea.

In that case, a 22-year-old carpenter said that during an alcohol-induced blackout, he staggered his way back to his childhood home, found a couple sleeping in his parents' former room and stabbed them to death.

He testified that he woke up with bloody clothes but wasn't sure exactly what he had done. His crime came to light after he confided his fears that he had committed the crime to members of an Alcoholics Anonymous group.

Carl McGavran, who owned a Kirkland pet shop where Schierman worked for several years, said he knew Schierman was an alcoholic, but had never seen him violent.

McGavran said he had fired and rehired Schierman a couple of times because he wouldn't show up for work.

"He'd say he blacked out," McGavran said.

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com. Times reporters Natalie Singer and Lisa Chiu and news researchers Miyoko Wolf and David Turim contributed to this report.