Greenwood arson burn victim doesn't bear any malice

Carlos Salmeron says he harbors no ill will toward Kevin Todd Swalwell, the man accused of setting the fire behind Salmeron's Greenwood apartment that caused burns over 70 percent of Salmeron's body.

"I don't think he's good in his mind. He needs help," said Salmeron, a 68-year-old janitor who suffered burns to his legs, arms, back and face in the Aug. 13 blaze at his then-home in the 100 block of Northwest 84th Street. "I think he was so depressed in his life to act that way. Something is wrong with him."

Swalwell's prints matched palm prints found on a container of lighter fluid left near the scene of the 4:30 p.m. blaze at Salmeron's apartment, according to a Seattle police probable-cause statement released Friday.

Swalwell, 46, is being held in the King County Jail on suspicion of first- and second-degree arson in connection with two of the 13 arsons in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood.

He also is considered the primary "person of interest" in a Shoreline fire that fire investigators also determined was intentionally set, a spokeswoman for the Shoreline Fire Department said Friday.

At the time of the August blaze, Salmeron was home watching TV in his basement unit when the room "started getting foggy" with smoke. He opened his apartment door and saw smoke pouring from the ceiling of a common area. He then tried to open a door that leads to a back alley, but the heat from the fire had melted the doorknob. So he kicked the door down.

"I break it and go out. When I break it, the fire and all the steam burned my face, my leg, my arm," said Salmeron.

He spent three weeks at Harborview Medical Center and underwent back-to-back surgeries. Salmeron said his $70,000 hospital bill is being paid with a combination of funds from his insurance company, his labor union and the state fund for crime victims.

Salmeron, a spiritual man who says his faith has helped him through his recovery, still needs physical therapy to help repair damage to his muscles and nerves.

"I'm doing better but I need therapy. I'm doing fine. It just takes so long to heal," Salmeron said.

For the last five weeks, he's been staying with his niece in Everett but is hoping to find a place of his own soon, preferably in Greenwood or North Seattle — neighborhoods he's lived in since moving to the city in 1983.

As for Swalwell, Salmeron said, "I don't have no bad feeling. I feel really sorry about him. I don't blame him for everything."

He said that in his younger years "I used to be a bad boy, too."

Salmeron encouraged Swalwell to do as he did: "I think he needs to go to God. He needs to surrender to him and ask forgiveness."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com