Judge confirms death sentence for killer of family of four

Condemned to death for murders he says he doesn't recall committing, Conner Schierman read a prepared statement in court Thursday in which he lambasted the sentence as "vengeance."

"This sentence isn't justice, it's vengeance," Schierman said. "It's the premeditated ending of a human being."

Earlier this month, a Seattle jury found Schierman, a 28-year-old with no prior criminal history, guilty of killing four members of a Kirkland family and recommended the death sentence. Schierman claimed he suffered an alcohol-induced blackout and doesn't remember why or how he ended up in a neighbor's Kirkland house covered in blood and surrounded by two dead woman and two dead children.

On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Gregory Canova followed the jury's recommendation and ordered Schierman to death row at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla to await his execution. Many of the jurors who found Schierman guilty of four counts of aggravated murder and one count of first-degree arson packed the courtroom, along with Schierman's family and relatives of victims Olga Milkin, 28; her sons, Justin, 5, and Andrew, 3; and her sister, Lyubov Botvina, 24.

Schierman's was the first case in which King County prosecutors sought a death sentence since that of Green River killer Gary L. Ridgway. In exchange for his cooperation — he provided details that helped solve dozens of open murder cases — Ridgway was sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder in 2003.

Schierman questioned why he should face the death penalty when Ridgway did not.

Schierman is the first person to be sentenced to death in King County since 2001, when Dayva Cross was condemned to death for killing his wife and two of her daughters. Cross remains on death row.

Schierman had moved into a duplex across the street from the victims 17 days before the July 16, 2006, slayings. A self-described recovering alcoholic and drug addict, Schierman worked at a pet store and was a maintenance worker.

The defense claimed that after discovering the bodies of the four victims, Schierman feared no one would believe that he couldn't remember what had happened, so he set fire to the house.

No clear-cut motive for the slayings ever emerged during the trial.

"I don't know what happened. I'm no killer," Schierman said in court Thursday. "I woke up in a strange house with four dead strangers."

Relatives of the four victims testified Thursday that they were happy with the sentence. Yelena Shidlovski, whose two sisters were killed, told Schierman that she forgave him but that he needed to "reconcile" what he did with God.

Schierman's sentence comes as the death penalty remains in limbo in Washington state, where there has not been an execution since 2001.

Darold Stenson and Cal Coburn Brown were the most recent death-row inmates scheduled for execution in 2008 and 2009, respectively, but their cases were stayed.

Brown's case was stayed after his lawyers argued that the drugs used in lethal injection by the state Department of Corrections could constitute cruel and unusual punishment if they didn't work properly.

Stenson's stay was issued so DNA testing could be performed in the case. But with that stay set to expire this summer, his lawyers say they will seek a new stay based on possible evidence contamination.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com

Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report