MANHATTAN, Kan. — Prosecutors will be looking to put a Kansas State student in prison for a long time. Patrick Scahill pled guilty to setting a Manhattan apartment fire than killed A. Vasanta Pallem, who was a Kansas State University researcher.
Scahill will be sentenced on Monday. Federal sentencing guidelines recommend 27 to 33 years in prison. But the Associated Press reported that prosecutors say what Scahill did was “monsterous.”
Scahill and another student admitted they set the fire to divert the attention of officers who were about to search his apartment for drugs and items from a robbery.