Charges: Pair of teens kill friend, burn down crime scene Reports say the teens ambushed a friend at his Auburn home, shot him with his father's guns and torched the family home

Two teens are accused of sneaking into a friend's home, shooting the friend upon his arrival and burning down his house earlier this month in Auburn.

Dylan Mullins, 18, and Sebastian Gregg, 17, were charged Wednesday with first-degree murder, arson and burglary for the scheme that killed Jerry "Mike" Clayton. Gregg has been charged as an adult.

Upon their arrest, they independently confessed identical plans to "drop" Clayton, charging documents say.

"The defendants together planned, executed, and attempted to cover up their cold-blooded murder of Mike Clayton," Senior Deputy Prosecutor Adrienne McCoy wrote in her bail request. "... (E)ach confessed fully and freely to committing these crimes and provided clear details of the motive, the plan, and what each of them did step by step."

Mullins and Clayton were reportedly friends. Mullins is alleged to have used his knowledge of Clayton's family's schedule to break into their house with Gregg and ambush Clayton.

The slaying occurred the morning of July 6 in the 29600 block of 142nd Avenue Southeast in Auburn, according to Auburn police. Firefighters were called to a mobile home fire with a "male still inside," but when they arrived, the home was overtaken by flames and deemed unsafe to enter.

"(T)he chance of anyone surviving the fire was not possible," Detective F. Nix wrote in his report of the case.

Police and firefighters kept watch of the fire until the next morning. By that time, the entire roof was destroyed and only a portion of the home's shell and framing remained, Nix wrote.

A fire investigator found a destroyed rifle inside, a human foot and three shell casings. A gun safe, belonging to Clayton's father, was open and the eight guns stored there were missing, reports say.

After a search warrant was issued, law enforcement, fire investigators and the King County Medical Examiner recovered a body, a 30/30 rifle, a spent rifle casing in the rifle and a spent .303 casing near the gun safe. A couple of the other guns belonging to Clayton's father were also found near the safe, reports indicate.

A friend of Clayton's went searching for him July 6 before his death was confirmed. On the property where the fire occurred, the friend found a wallet belonging to Sebastian Gregg and turned it over to Auburn police. Cops also found a .357 handgun and throwing star near where the wallet was recovered, according to court documents.

Clayton's family told police they didn't know Gregg and he wouldn't have any reason to be on their property.

A friend of Clayton's was with him almost immediately before his death, reports say. She had picked him up that morning and took him to his house because he was going to loan her some batteries, she told police. She declined to come inside, so Clayton went into the house and soon returned with the batteries. However, he said he forgot something and returned to the home.

As Clayton crossed the doorway, the friend heard someone say, "Oh, sh*t," followed by eight to 10 gunshots or pops.

She tried to text Clayton, but he didn't respond. She told police she didn't go after him because she is pregnant and didn't want to get shot. About seven minutes after she heard the gunshots, she saw smoke emanating from the home's closed front door and heard a smoke alarm. At that point, she sought help from a neighbor, who called 911.

Kent city government video surveillance showed that two men took a parks department truck about 1:50 a.m. July 7. One of the men was seen holding a rifle.

Later that afternoon, a state trooper pulled over the truck for speeding in Grays Harbor County and soon learned it was reported stolen.

The trooper contacted Gregg and Mullins in the truck and spotted ammunition between Gregg's feet in the passenger seat. The trooper then arrested the pair for possession of a stolen vehicle.

A search of the vehicle yielded two rifles -- one matching the casing found at the homicide scene -- and a .44 caliber revolver, confirmed to belong to Clayton's father.

Both Gregg and Mullins reportedly laid out their scheme step-by-step to the Auburn detectives who interviewed them in Grays Harbor County.

Gregg said that Clayton and four other friends "jumped" Mullins a few days earlier regarding an unspecified conflict, according to charging documents.

Early on July 6, Gregg and Mullins allegedly went to Clayton's house at a time when they knew he would not be home and waited for his father to leave for work.

When Clayton's father departed, they entered the house through Clayton's bedroom window and waited "several hours" for him to come home. During that time, they broke into the gun safe and readied two firearms to use against Clayton, reports indicate. While they waited, they decided to burn down the home to destroy evidence.

Mullins claimed he and Gregg shot at Clayton from two angles as soon as he walked through the front door, police reports say.

After a couple shots, Mullins said he knew they would "burn the house down anyway. So (Mike) was going to bleed out or die of burning," court documents read. Mullins said he decided, "F**k it," and fired off four more shots.

He said he emptied and reloaded the revolver and escaped out a back door with Gregg after setting fire to the home, court records indicate.

Mullins claimed he did not initially intend to kill Clayton -- just to scare him by "grazing" or "shooting him in the knee" -- but Gregg said "they should just kill Mike," Detective Nix's report says.

The teens both admitted to stashing weapons near a fence and tree line next to the property and returning with the stolen City of Kent truck to pick up the weapons and take off, reports say. They confessed they could not find one of the firearms or Gregg's wallet, but loaded the rest of the weapons into the truck.

Clayton's father told Auburn police that Clayton and Mullins had burglarized Clayton's uncle in June to take some guns, charging papers say. Clayton's cousins said that during an outing to use the guns, Clayton and Mullins got into a fistfight that left Mullins with stitches.

Reports indicate that Gregg and Mullins also have pending burglary charges from a June 23 incident in which they're alleged to have broken into the home of a neighbor of Mullins' parents.

When the homeowner was away, they reportedly tried to burn down the back door and then accessed an upstairs window with a ladder. While inside, they allegedly stole electronics and jewelry and stuck two knives through a painting on their way out.

Only a few days earlier, Mullins was involuntarily committed after refusing to leave his father's property while armed with a knife, Auburn police say.

Gregg's father reported his son missing to Kent police just an hour before the fire to the Clayton home.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the pair were being held in King County Jail on $2 million bail.

Lynsi Burton can be reached at lynsiburton@seattlepi.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LynsiBurton_PI.

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