‘He’s just been a wrecking ball’: Accused arsonist in SW Portland apartment fire hit with stalking order day before blaze

Investigators work at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Fire damage at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Investigators work at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Fire trucks sit outside of the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Investigators work at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Fire damage at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Investigators work at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Fire damage at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Investigators work at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Fire damage at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

Fire damage at the May Apartments at Southwest 14th Avenue and Taylor Street in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. A four-alarm fire ripped through the 1912 apartment building a week earlier.

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The man accused of setting the fire that destroyed a 113-year-old apartment building near downtown Portland on May 16 has a string of prior arrests and was slapped with a restraining order the day before the blaze broke out, court records show.

Garrett A. Repp was arrested Thursday evening on 31 charges, including multiple counts of first-degree arson, reckless endangerment and first-degree criminal mischief in the fire at The May Apartments in the city’s Goose Hollow neighborhood.

No one was seriously injured during the inferno, but the flames displaced the residents of all 42 units and killed an unknown number of pets. The building likely will be torn down.

Portland Police spokesperson Sgt. Kevin Allen said Repp, 30, was arrested the day of the blaze because building management had reported him on May 9 for “breaking through the wall of his apartment” and tunneling into the vacant unit next door. Repp was charged with one count of first-degree criminal mischief and released later on May 16. The case has since been closed.

Repp was well-known to residents at The May Apartments, according to interviews with three tenants and a former property manager, who said he had pulled the fire alarm for no reason more than a dozen times since he moved in last December and had repeatedly clashed with other residents.

Gabriella Kielhorn, who lived directly above Repp on the fourth floor, said Repp was arrested shortly after he arrived when residents reported him for running through the hallways wielding an unsheathed broadsword.

Court records filed Dec. 14 show Repp was arrested on charges of second-degree disorderly conduct. The records don’t specify the reason for Repp’s arrest, and the case was dropped later that day.

Kielhorn said Repp continued to bang on her door while armed with the sword after he was released. The 24-year-old artist lost more than 150 paintings and her three cats to the devouring flames.

“He’d been terrorizing us for months,” she said. “Nobody listened.”

Repp was arrested two more times in April for trespassing, court records show. Only of one of those cases remains open, which alleges Repp was trespassing inside his ex-girlfriend’s apartment building, located some six blocks from The May.

A probable cause affidavit in the trespassing case says officers were forced to break down his ex-girlfriend’s door with a fireman’s ax on April 21 after Repp, inside, refused to open it. Repp was released the next day but re-arrested minutes later after he began kicking the glass doors inside the Police Bureau’s lobby and then ran down a ramp outside leading to the jail’s secure underground entrance, according to the affidavit.

Izzy Blankenship, who is named in the affidavit as the unit’s occupant, said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive that she returned to her building on Northwest 16th Avenue and found that Repp had used her bed and furniture as a makeshift barricade and ripped a security alarm out of the wall.

“He’s just been a wrecking ball for my life,” she said.

An undated photo of Garrett Repp provided by a tenant of The May apartments is shown here.

Blankenship, 26, said she met Repp in 2021 at the Southpark Seafood restaurant, where she worked as a cook and he served as a dishwasher.

The two hit it off at first, but Blankenship said she ended the relationship last August after Repp began using methamphetamine and acting increasingly paranoid.

Repp would talk to imaginary figures in Blankenship’s presence, she said, and he would frequently throw away his cell phone because he believed someone was listening. Repp also kept a “doomsday package” of survival gear packed in his car, Blankenship said.

She said she tried to maintain a level of contact with Repp, but the situation became untenable after Repp began trespassing at her building when she wasn’t home, culminating in the April 21 incident.

Blankenship described what happened that day in a restraining order that was granted by a judge May 15, according to records reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

“His behavior became so erratic that I was starting to worry that he could do anything,” she said. “I really want him to get the help that he so desperately needs.”

Blankenship said she is now fighting her own eviction case.

Blankenship said she was unaware that Repp was activating the alarm at The May until she read news stories about the fire, but she confirmed that he owned several medieval-style swords.

John Judge, a resident at The May, said he frequently saw Repp sitting on the front stoop smoking, with a “crazy look in his eye.”

When he would set off the fire alarm for no apparent reason, it often took firefighters half an hour or so to respond and turn it off, Judge said.

“After a while it had gotten to be monotonous,” Judge said of the frequency of the alarms being activated. “It was just like, ‘OK, it’s him again.’”

Rachel Elkins, a spokesperson for the building’s owner, SkyNat Property Management, said the company was not commenting on the matter at the direction of their attorney.

SkyNat filed an eviction order against Repp on Feb. 14, alleging he owed $3,400 in back rent and late fees. Repp failed to appear in court to challenge the allegation, records show, and on May 10 a judge ordered sheriff’s deputies to remove him from his third-floor apartment.

The brick building at 1410 S.W. Taylor was consumed by flames five days later. Repp is currently lodged without bail at the county’s downtown jail.

— Zane Sparling; zsparling@oregonian.com; 503-319-7083; @pdxzane

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