Prosecutors announced Wednesday that they won’t seek the death penalty against a man charged with setting a June 2016 fire that killed five people in a vacant commercial building in the Westlake district where a group of transients were living.
Johnny Josue Sanchez, 23, is charged with five counts of murder for the June 13, 2016 deaths of De Andre Mitchell, Jerry Dean Clemons, Mary Ann Davis, Joseph Proenneke and Tierra Stansberry, along with two counts of attempted murder involving two people who were rescued from the burning building.
The murder charges include the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder during the commission of an arson.
Authorities allege that Sanchez intentionally set the blaze because he had been involved in a dispute with another transient in the vacant building at 2411 W. Eighth St., near MacArthur Park.
One man was initially declared dead as a result of the fire, which swept through the building where homeless people had been living. Cadaver dogs and their handlers discovered the bodies of four more people “huddled up” in the ruins of the two-story structure the next day, Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigator Lance Jimenez testified at a hearing in March in which Sanchez was ordered to stand trial.
The arson investigator testified that the fire had two areas of origin and that he was able to rule out the possibility that the blaze had been accidentally caused.
Sanchez was arrested that night by Los Angeles police and has remained jailed without bail.
He is due back at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse July 17 for a pretrial hearing, and could now face a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted as charged.