Jul 4, 2008

Man gets three years for arson

Schuttloffel's two sons died in the Half Moon Bay blaze

Bay Area News Group and Wire Report

A Half Moon Bay fisherman who once faced up to life in prison without parole for the deaths of his two young sons in a 2004 San Gregorio house fire was sentenced Thursday to just three years in prison.

Nonetheless, Charles Schuttloffel Sr., 38, wept as a San Mateo County Superior Court judge meted out his punishment.

Dressed in orange jail garb and manacled, Schuttloffel repeatedly glanced back at friends and family members during his hearing. He was suffering from extreme remorse, said defense attorney Dek Ketchem.

Reminding Judge Clifford Cretan that his client's ultimate punishment was the recognition that his children died when he should have been watching them, Ketchem asked for mercy in the form of probation.

The judge told Schuttloffel that if he was any kind of human being he would remember this for the rest of his life, but his crime also warranted punishment under the law.

The remains of Schuttloffel's two sons, Charles Edward "Charlie" Schuttloffel Jr., 3, and William Leonard "Billy" Schuttloffel, 2, were found inside his home, located in a remote area on Seaside School Road., after the May 4, 2004, fire.

Prosecutors arrested Schuttloffel nearly three years later on one count of arson and two counts of murder in connection with the fire.

He pleaded no contest April 18 to reduced charges - two counts of involuntary manslaughter - in exchange for a punishment of no more than four years of incarceration for the fire.

Fire investigators hired by the District Attorney's Office had initially ruled out every possibility for the cause of the fire and came to the conclusion that it must have been arson.

However, prosecutors were forced to strike a plea bargain with Schuttloffel after an expert witness for the defense revealed in March that there were four small household appliances that burned in the fire, so there was no way to tell whether those had started the flames.

The chance that the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction led prosecutors to offer Schuttloffel a deal, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

But prosecutors have never wavered in assigning the fisherman blame for the crime. According to Deputy District Attorney Sean Gallagher, "circumstances that led to Charlie and Billy's death were directly connected to drug and alcohol abuse by (Schuttloffel)."

Schuttloffel told authorities he had gotten drunk and used methamphetamine the night before the fire.

But Ketchum said that while Schuttloffel may have been careless in leaving the boys inside alone, the fire was clearly an accident and the death of the boys was due to a lack of due caution, not a planned act.

Schuttloffel was injured in the fire and was restrained by sheriff's deputies as he tried to re-enter his home to save his children, the sheriff's office reported in 2004.

After Schuttloffel was sentenced Friday, Judge Cretan also sentenced him to two years for a methamphetamine charge from 2006. He will serve the drug and manslaughter sentences concurrently.

Schuttloffel's wife Lana, a school teacher who was not home when the fire took place, has maintained that her husband was not capable of committing the crime. The couple has a 4-year-old daughter.