‘Known offender’ accused of setting city-owned property on fire

A transient Olympia man, described by police as a “known offender,” is accused of setting fire to a property owned by the City of Olympia.

Matthew Colin Hickerson, 27, was arrested on Sept. 26 after 523 Franz Anderson Road SE, a city-owned structure, was set on fire for the second time that day.

While en route to the Franz Anderson address, police spotted a man near Interstate 5 and Pacific Avenue carrying a “smoking box” and walking away from a shopping cart that contained a fire.

A fire lieutenant told police that he and his crew put out the fire on Franz Anderson and then responded to I-5, where a shopping cart and tires had been set ablaze. Around two minutes after they put out the shopping cart fire, the city property was in flames again.

A trail connected the location of the shopping cart fire and the Franz Anderson property in the woods, the lieutenant said. The trail led police to the location where they last saw Hickerson carrying the smoking box.

The lieutenant said the blaze was started deliberately, adding that the incident fit the modus operandi of Hickerson, with whom he was familiar because the suspect used to live by an I-5 off-ramp.

Two witnesses, who live across from the city-owned property, also told police that they saw a man who fit Hickerson’s description just outside their house. They said that Hickerson walked away from the Franz Anderson structure right before it caught fire.

The lieutenant said Hickerson is known to gather lumber and wood and then light them on fire. One of the witnesses also recalled Hickerson asking him where he could get firewood a day before the Olympia property was set on fire.

Police located Hickerson in the 3500 block of Pacific Avenue SE. Both witnesses positively identified him as the man they saw near the city property and the man who asked about firewood.

Hickerson was booked into the Thurston County Jail for second-degree arson. He refused to provide details about the incident but kept asking for an officer to help him get released.

Police said his clothing was kept in evidence as it was “covered in soot and smelled like gasoline.” Two lighters were also found in his pocket, according to the police report.