‘Dangerous campaign of arson.’ Woman sentenced for murder, arson for Tacoma house fires

A woman found guilty of murder, 13 counts of arson, identity theft and other felonies for setting a series of fires at homes in Tacoma , one of which killed an 83-year-old man, was sentenced Tuesday to more than 80 years in prison.

During Sarah Jane Ramey’s sentencing hearing in Pierce County Superior Court, Judge Angelica Williams told the defendant she had undertaken a dangerous campaign of arson between Dec. 31, 2021 and Jan. 26, 2022, primarily in Tacoma’s North End.

Williams said Ramey’s actions were shocking in their “callousness and utter contempt for human life,” and she said the woman must account for it. The judge handed her an exceptional sentence of 980 months, beyond her standard sentencing range of about 34 to 45 years in prison.

“Every time you lit a structure on fire, you knew that your actions could have the potential to kill folks,” Williams said before imposing the sentence. “You didn’t know necessarily who was inside … But what is abundantly clear is that it seemed not to matter to you.”

Nine of the 13 fires Ramey was convicted of setting were at occupied homes, according to prosecutors, totaling at least 26 victims. The worst of them occurred on New Year’s Eve 2022 at 2 Rosemount Way, a 3,311-square-foot home built in 1909 where James Elliott died of smoke inhalation.

Elliott was awake when the fire began, Williams said. The court heard testimony from a neighbor who saw a light go on inside, according to the judge, and more neighbors told jurors about their desperate attempts to open a door to the home near a bathroom where Elliott was found dead.

Ramey’s Google searches in the following days show she knew that Elliott had died, Williams said. According to court records, she read articles from KOMO News and The News Tribune reporting on the fatal fire, which was initially thought to have been caused by a malfunctioning electrical wire. Further investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined it was set intentionally.

Ramey then returned to 2 Rosemount Way multiple times to steal from it. Williams said Ramey passed bad checks in the Elliotts’ name and stole thousands of dollars by purchasing merchandise at Lowe’s. According to court records, about $4,065 was spent there with the stolen credit card of Elliott’s late wife, including purchases for a portable generator, a backpack leaf-blower, a shop vac and a carpet cleaner.

“And despite knowing that your actions killed somebody, you then embarked on what can only be objectively described as a dangerous campaign of arson,” Williams said. “Fourteen additional fires resulting in 12 convictions for arson in the first degree and two convictions for attempted arson in the first degree.”

The amount of damage caused by the fires ranged widely, according to prosecutors, from the destruction of three houses to damages that were not reported to the homeowners’ insurance, such as a Jan. 25, 2022 vehicle and garage fire.

Prosecutors said they expected restitution to be in the millions of dollars. A restitution hearing was set for Oct. 25. According to court records, insurance reimbursed Elliott’s family $800,000 to $900,000 for damages to their home. The Jan. 23, 2022 fire at 5226 N. Highland St. led to a $732,000 insurance payout, and the Jan. 26, 2022 fire at 4636 N. Gove St. led to a $530,000 payout.

Beyond her convictions for murder, arson and attempted arson, Ramey, 45, was found guilty July 3 of two counts of first-degree identity theft, second-degree identity theft, second-degree burglary, residential burglary and theft of a motor vehicle.

Jurors acquitted Ramey of three arsons that occurred in Central Tacoma the evening before she set fire to 2 Rosemount Way. The trial stretched over three months and included testimony from more than 120 witnesses.

Prosecutors ask for century-long sentence

Earlier in Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Williams denied a motion from the defense to dismiss the aggravating circumstances found in the case. The jury panel of six men and six women found that 11 of the arsons or attempted arsons Ramey was convicted of involved multiple victims, and in three of the arsons Ramey attempted to or caused monetary loss that was substantially greater than is typical for first-degree arson.

Those aggravators allowed prosecutors to argue for an exceptional sentence beyond the standard range. Deputy prosecuting attorney Claire Vitikainen requested an even lengthier sentence than Williams imposed, about 117 years, arguing that Ramey’s high offender score would result in her going unpunished for any of the fires she set Jan. 19-26, 2022 because she ordinarily would be required to serve those sentences at the same time.

Instead, Vitikainen suggested that Ramey should serve consecutive sentences for Elliott’s murder and 8 arsons. In her sentencing memorandum, the attorney said it was only “sheer luck” that the 25 other victims didn’t die as Elliott did.

“Someone noticed the fire and called attention to it, or the fire burned out on its own,” Vitikainen wrote in her sentencing recommendation. “The defendant targeted these homes in the hours of the night when individuals were most likely to be home.”

Vitikainen’s sentencing memo described how after the deadly fire, Ramey set more fires each night. Ramey had a personal connection to some of the victims, and the attorney described how GPS data showed she sometimes stayed to watch the fires burn.

The first post-fatality fire she set was Jan. 19, 2022, at 5206 N. Shirley St. Vitikainen said Ramey had worked for the people who lived there, and they had tried to help Ramey by giving her money. She set a fire there in three different places while three people were inside.

Sometime over the following weekend, Ramey burglarized a Metro Parks building, stealing keys to a fleet of vehicles and taking a work truck and a high-visibility jacket. Then, in the early hours of Jan. 23, 2022, prosecutors said the defendant targeted the house at 5226 N. Highland St.

Ramey watched as Joe Sharkey twice ran back to his family’s burning house and tried to put it out with a garden hose. Meanwhile, Nancy Sharkey and their three children sheltered in a neighbor’s house while the Tacoma and Ruston fire departments fought the fire.

Later that evening, Ramey set fire to two more homes, at 5505 S. Fawcett Ave. and 427 S. 54th St. The homes were three blocks away from one another, and prosecutors said the second appeared to be “revenge” against the homeowner for alerting her neighbor on Fawcett Avenue to the fire at her home.

Just 30 minutes after that warning, surveillance video and latent print identification captured Ramey splashing liquid onto the home on 54th Street, lighting a rag on fire and dropping it in the liquid. A woman and her baby were inside, and prosecutors said the only reason they’re alive is because the fire burnt itself out. The resident didn’t discover the fire until she checked surveillance footage three days later.

The next cluster of fires Ramey set was Jan 25, 2022, when she lit three homes on fire in about 45 minutes. The final string of fires was set overnight from Jan. 25 to Jan. 26, 2022, starting with a fire Ramey set in the doorway of the Park Terrace Apartments on North Pearl Street, trapping residents and forcing two to escape out of their window. Ramey was convicted of five counts of first-degree arson and two counts of attempted arson for fires she set that night.

“At no time did she stop,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo. “At no time did she act in any way that expressed concern or remorse. Only one thing stopped the defendant – her arrest.”

Victims address the court

Judge Williams heard from the victims of three fires during Ramey’s sentencing hearing, including from two of Elliott’s adult children, Dan Elliott and Elizabeth Keating.

Anytime Keating smells a fire, she said she thinks of her father’s death. She said she’s spent many nights lying awake, haunted by thoughts of his last moments. She said she thinks of the panic he must have felt as he was overwhelmed by flames, struggling to breathe and trying to escape.

She spoke highly of her father, telling the court that he was proud of the life he built and that he loved his family. James Elliott was the first in his family to go to college, Keating said, served his country during the Vietnam War and started a family business.

Her father’s murder came just a month after her mother died in a tragic accident. Keating said her family was able to surround their mother when she passed, but the same wasn’t true for her father.

“Because of someone’s callous and reckless disregard of life, my father died just inches away from safety, afraid and alone,” Keating said.

Now that the trial is over, Keating said she hopes she and her family can finally “unwrap” their grief.

The destruction of the house robbed Keating’s family of the chance to sort through photos and mementos of Elliott. Keating said Ramey had literally robbed the dead by stealing from the house after the fire.

Keating asked the judge to impose the maximum possible sentence. She said none of it would right the wrongs or repay the debt she said Ramey owes to society, but she said she hoped the court would do what it can to prevent her from harming anyone else.

Nancy Sharkey spoke next, telling Williams she believed Ramey had tried to kill her, her husband and their three children when she set fire to their house at 5226 N. Highland St., which was a total loss. Sharkey said she thinks of Elliott’s murder every day.

“Only a monster could enjoy the destruction and then do that again, over and over, possibly killing other people and destroying their homes,” Sharkey said. “I believe she knew exactly what she was doing.”

Sharkey described much of what her family lost in the fire, including sentimental items like a crib her parents bought for her when she had children, a wedding photo album and a lifetime of pictures she took, starting from when Sharkey was in the second grade.

“My daughter’s room was a big black hole,” Sharkey said. “Nothing was left.”

Sharkey said she understood there were sentencing guidelines in place, but she said she felt Ramey should never get out of prison.

Then Virginia Ayarza addressed the court. It was Ayarza who was alerted by a neighbor about the fire at her home the night of Jan. 23, 2022, just 30 minutes before Ramey tried to set that neighbor’s home on fire, allegedly as revenge.

Ayarza told Williams that her respect and fear of fire started at an early age after her aunt and young cousin narrowly escaped from being trapped in a burning house in 1972. Years later, on Jan. 5, 1986, she lost friends in a house fire. She said she still holds a moment of silence for them each year.

“I feel for the Elliott family because I know that these things never go away,” Ayarza said.

Ramey was Ayarza’s neighbor in Tacoma’s South End, and she said the defendant knew that there were often young children in her house. The night of the fire, she recalled a neighbor banging on their door to get them out after seeing the flames. Ayarza said Ramey saw that and subsequently started a fire behind the neighbor’s house.

“There’s mental illness, and then there’s evil,” Ayarza said. “And I do believe that she is evil.”

Ayarza told Williams she hoped she would keep Ramey in jail, but she really wished the state had a death penalty. And if these were biblical times, she said, she would be there to throw the first stone.

Defense asks for standard-range sentence

Ramey’s defense attorney, Mary K. High, asked the court to impose a standard-range sentence, stating that even that would be a de facto life sentence. She said even at the low end of the range, Ramey would be about 79 years old if she served her entire sentence, which High said exceeds the life expectancy of an individual in the Department of Corrections.

High’s recommendation was heard after multiple victims in the case spoke, some of whom called Ramey a “monster” for her actions. One person said the defendant should get the death penalty, which is not an option in Washington.

The defense attorney said it was hard to stand there and listen to someone she knows and has worked hard to represent called “evil” and a “monster.” She said information about Ramey’s background in court records, from the jail and mental health records permits some compassion.

“The impact on their lives may lead them to have that view. But to hear individuals say I’d throw the stone, I’d like to see the death penalty, is hard,” High said.

Ramey has a history of childhood trauma and abuse, according to High’s sentencing memorandum, and the attorney said this predictably led to a path marred by drug use, mental health issues, low esteem and abusive relationships.

A relationship she had with a man for 10 years, Dereck Dombrock, ended tragically in August 2021 when Dombrock died of a heart attack while working on a job site. According to High’s sentencing memo, Ramey immediately returned to heroin use and was associating with others who used drugs, and, at the time of the fires she was convicted of setting, the woman was not in counseling or taking her medications.

High wrote in court records that Ramey’s history of mental health diagnoses extends well over a decade, and she’s currently being treated for bipolar disorder, anxiety, major depressive disorder and PTSD.

Ramey did not address the court when given the opportunity to speak. High said she’d advised her client not to speak due to “the nature of the appeal.”

Ultimately, Williams ordered Ramey to serve consecutive sentences of 548 months for first-degree murder in Elliott’s death, 144 months for first-degree arson in the Jan. 23, 2022 fire at 5226 N. Highland St., 144 months for first-degree arson in the Jan. 23, 2022 fire at 427 S. 54th St and 144 months for first-degree arson in the Jan. 26, 2022 fire at 4636 N. Gove St.

Williams imposed high end sentences on the remaining counts and ordered that they be served concurrently.

After court adjourned, Ayarza told The News Tribune she felt a fair sentence would have been the death penalty because Ramey had murdered another person, but she felt Ramey being held in prison for life kept the community safe.

Dan Elliott and Elizabeth Keating told The News Tribune they were satisfied with the judge’s sentence.

“I think everybody’s consensus was, ‘Just don’t want her to ever see the light of day again’. And that will do it,” Keating said.