‘MESMERIZED BY FIRE’

Man Who Allegedly Opened Fire on Jehovah’s Witness Building Accused of Hate Crime

Mikey Diamond Starrett allegedly used a semi-automatic rifle to damage the Kingdom Hall in Yelm, Washington, “because of the religious character of the property.”

A 50-year-old Washington man was charged on Thursday with damaging a religious property with a dangerous weapon after allegedly shooting at a place of worship for Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Mikey Diamond Starrett was indicted by a federal jury over the May 2018 incident, in which he is accused of using a semi-automatic rifle to deface the building, known as a Kingdom Hall. Starrett was arrested last September, with prosecutors linking him to the shooting and a string of eight arsons all targeting Jehovah’s Witness halls, The Olympian reported. In a letter to the court last October, Starrett proclaimed his innocence and denied being “mesmerized by fire,” as his ex-partner apparently told law enforcement. A number of friends and family told investigators that Starrett had said he was “haunted by spirits who [tell] him to do bad things,” with several alleging he believed these spirits to be the dead relatives of an ex-girlfriend who was a Jehovah’s Witness, according to court records.