'Justice has been served': Man found guilty of killing 4 Iowans in Los Angeles fire

Luke Nozicka | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption After Ottumwa woman died in Los Angeles fire, her family seeks justice Tierra Stansberry, 18, of Ottumwa, died in a fire in Los Angeles, allegedly set by a homeless man from Honduras. The family is trying to be present at the trial and is looking for help for travel expenses.

A southern California jury this week found a homeless man guilty of killing five people, four of whom were from southeast Iowa, by setting an abandoned Los Angeles building on fire in June 2016.

Johnny Josue Sanchez, 24, was convicted by the Los Angeles County jury of five counts of murder and two of attempted murder. After six hours of deliberations, jurors found the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and arson murder to be true.

Sanchez will be sentenced in January to a minimum of life in prison without the possibility of parole. A committee in June found him not eligible for the death penalty.

When they heard a verdict had been reached Thursday, family members of Tierra Stansberry, an 18-year-old Ottumwa woman who perished in the blaze, rushed to the courtroom. They panicked, thinking the jurors looked nervous; maybe they decided he was not guilty.

The two minutes it took for the verdict to be handed to the court reporter felt like slow motion for those family members. But when the first guilty judgment was read for Jerry Clemons, another Iowan who died, their "50-pound burden" was gone.

"Justice has been served," Tammy Proenneke, whose adopted son, Joseph, also died in the blaze, said Friday.

Sanchez's public defender did not return a call seeking comment Friday. As the verdict was read, Sanchez, who took the stand at trial, became emotional and asked to leave the courtroom, a homicide detective said in an email to the victims' families.

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More than 100 firefighters battled the June 13, 2016, blaze at the commercial building, where investigators found the bodies Ottumwa residents Tierra Stansberry; her 24-year-old boyfriend, Joseph Proenneke; Proenneke’s biological mother, Mary Davis, 44; and Davis' husband, Jerry Clemons, 59. A California man, DeAndre Mitchell, 34, also died.

At opening statements, prosecutors said Sanchez had been beaten up by someone he did not like before his rage "exploded into a desire" to get back at the person, setting the fire that ultimately killed the five people.

"He had no regard for the life of the other people inside," Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Joy Roberts said Oct. 29, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Sanchez's public defender, Jason Rubel, had said the evidence would not show beyond a reasonable doubt that his client set the fire. He called the state’s witnesses unreliable and asked jurors to not let upsetting images impede their abilities to be fair.

"Johnny Sanchez did not start this fire and did not cause these awful incidents," Rubel said at the beginning of the trial.

Tammy Proenneke was at work when she received a voicemail informing her a verdict had been reached. She played "mind games" with herself as she waited to hear what the jury decided, contemplating if the hours of deliberations meant guilty or not.

More than two years after the fire, Proenneke was relieved. Though it would not bring Joseph back, the verdict gave her and her husband, Jon, some closure and peace.

"I was well past ready for that," she said.

Family members of those killed expressed frustration when they learned the district attorney's office would not seek the death penalty. California has not executed anyone since 2006, The Associated Press recently reported.

It remained unclear why Tierra Stansberry and Joseph Proenneke, who had been dating for about eight months, were in the building at 2411 W. Eighth St., just northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Some family members believe the two traveled there by bus, eventually meeting up with Proenneke's biological mother and her husband.

Before the fire, Sanchez into a fight with a woman in the building and threatened to chop her up with a machete, prosecutors said. As the building burned, a woman came across a Hispanic man who authorities said was Sanchez and asked him who set the fire.

"I did," the man responded, according to testimony.

"Why would you set the fire?" she asked.

"I don’t like the son of a b---- who’s inside," the man responded, according to a detective who interviewed the witness. The man, according to testimony, added to the woman: "I will burn your place down, too."

As investigators sifted through the rubble, dogs found four of the bodies "huddled up together," a fire agent testified at a preliminary hearing.

Each person died of smoke inhalation and thermal injuries; for some, carbon monoxide intoxication was also listed as a cause of death.

Investigators observed burn patterns and learned electricity had been turned off in the deserted structure, which once housed a Chinese medical business. Homeless people sought refuge there when it closed.

Sanchez, a Honduras native in the United States illegally, was among a group of people arrested in November 2012 along the southeastern California border. He was released under ordered supervision when authorities determined he had no criminal history.

He failed to report for an appointment in August 2014. A review of his case after the fire showed immigration proceedings were initiated for others arrested with Sanchez, but for an "unknown reason," nothing happened to him, federal officials said.

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