Two men linked to the fire that killed 19 horses at Stetson’s Deseo Farm were sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison Wednesday, but not before one of them implored a judge to “get the man who set this whole thing up.”

The allusion to a third suspect is one more unusual facet of this case, which attracted spectators who filled the courtroom, lined the hallways and marched with signs outside the courthouse building.

In his sentence, Justice John R. Atwood said the crimes of Larry Gerry Jr. and Jason Willard were “not just senseless, but wildly reckless.”

The two men, both 20 and both from Stetson, were present at Jan Hartwell’s Deseo horse barn last Nov. 1 when one of them climbed up to the hayloft and dropped a lit matchbook.

Throughout the case, investigators have been frustrated by the fact that Willard and Gerry gave conflicting accounts of why they were there, then accused each other of igniting the blaze.

Investigators from the state Fire Marshal’s Office are still grappling with lingering issues from the case. Two investigators met with Willard and Gerry on Wednesday in a back room of the court to give them another chance to correct their statements, said Deputy District Attorney Michael Roberts.

Atwood called the Stetson fire “a case of first impression,” meaning that he had no precedent in Maine law with which to guide his sentence.

Simple structure fires may yield sentences as low as nine months in prison. Fires at apartment buildings that endanger human life can get more than 30 years. But nothing in Maine law suggests an appropriate sentence for an arson fire that involves the killing of animals on a large scale.

“Is that enough?” Atwood asked of his sentence. “Time will tell. Is it too much? I have no way of knowing.”

Throughout the proceedings Wednesday, Willard, whose sandy-blond hair now is dyed black, stared vacantly at the judge. Gerry looked down, particularly when a procession of witnesses who lost horses in the fire spoke of their losses.

The Rev. Richard Barry of Skowhegan, a practiced public speaker, said he seldom has broken down as he did in court Wednesday when he described the death of Deseo Miscue Cheeta, his daughter’s prized quarter horse.

His daughter Nicole had been scheduled to show the horse last spring at a world quarter horse competition. On Nov. 1, alerted to the fire by news reports, Barry and his daughter raced to the scene and were among countless people who lined Route 222 near Deseo Farm. With the flames still raging, she walked toward the bulding. “If that was me in that fire, Daddy, wouldn’t you want to be there?” Nicole asked her father.

“If God ever made anything as good or better than humans, it was those horses,” Barry said, his voice cracking with emotion. “Those guys took her dream away.”

Judy Biggar told the story of another girl named Nicole — her daughter and Jan Hartwell’s niece. With a picture of her daughter’s horse, Princess, pinned to her flower print shirt, Biggar said her family was the first to the fire that night. Her 11-year old daughter, she said, “heard the screams and the kicking of her best friends dying.”

That night, Biggar came to her daughter’s room to say goodnight. Hanging on the wall were Nicole’s white riding gloves, still fresh with horse hair. “She said `Momma, don’t ever take these off,”‘ Biggar recounted in court.

Looking at the defense table, Biggar said, “These two men, with their cowardly, hideous crime, have taken away plenty of her precious memories.”

Also Wednesday, Roberts, Atwood and the two defense attorneys all referred to the possibility of a third suspect, a prospect that has lingered since the beginning of the case.

Outside the court, state fire marshal’s investigator James Ellis said there was still an active investigation into possible co-conspirators. In court, Gerry raised eyebrows when he asked the judge “to get the man who set this whole thing up.” Gerry’s attorney, Marshall Cary of Bangor, suggested the man had offered money to Willard and Gerry to finance the incident.

No one named the third man, but in a previous interview, Stetson resident Mark Merrill came forward to express his frustration at being “the number one suspect” in the case. Though he at one time employed both Willard and Gerry and owns the stable next to Hartwell’s, Merrill has denied adamantly any connection to the fire.

“Somehow I got caught in the middle of this,” Merrill said Wednesday. “I had no idea any of this was going on.”

Merrill and his wife, Ann, have asked the fire marshal’s and district attorney’s offices to clear his name publicly if there is no evidence to indict him.

Justice Atwood said the issue of a third suspect was irrelevant to his sentencing since the two men were under no compulsion to commit the crime.

The two men were sentenced to 15 years in prison, with all but 5 1/2 years suspended, for arson. Concurrent to that will be a six-month sentence for criminal mischief and 364 days for cruelty to animals. Willard and Gerry also must pay a total of $15,291 to four people who lost horses in the fire and serve six years probation.

In court, several of Gerry’s relatives expressed shock at his involvement in the crime, calling him hard-working, soft-spoken and respectful.

“I just don’t understand why,” said his mother, Kathy Bournival. “When I heard it on the news, I just cried and cried.”

Yet, she said, if her son committed the crime he deserves to be punished.

Willard and Gerry were described by their attorneys as simple men with limited education and nothing in their criminal past that would suggest a proclivity to violence. Gerry dropped out of school in the 11th grade. Willard had to drop out of the Marine Corps after two months due to dyslexia.

Willard’s attorney, Perry O’Brian of Bangor, said both men were followers, “independently incapable” of planning the fire and unable to realize the consequences of their actions. Atwood rejected this notion, especially given that Willard was a former volunteer firefighter in Stetson, and that both men grew up around horses and barns.

“Is it not unmistakable that if a fire started in a barn full of hay, that the result would be catastrophe?” Atwood asked O’Brian. “Is it in any way conceivable that they would not know this?”