This true crime is about a single, middle-aged mother of two young children. She didn’t know her new boyfriend had a violent past and was on parole. How would she find out that tidbit? I doubt he would include that on his online dating profile.
Not only was he on parole, but he was also on parole for substantial and violent crimes. After dating and living together for one year, she told him it was over, and he needed to move out. He didn’t handle the rejection well.
Everything came to a head when the ex-boyfriend set fire to her two coffee shop businesses and shattered a window in her home while her two children were home alone.
Security footage caught his vehicle near both of her coffee businesses within seconds of when the sprinkler systems turned on. A neighbor recognized his vehicle in the neighborhood at approximately the same time someone terrorized her children.
Gasoline cans found at the fires were a brand consistent with what the nearby Walmart store sold. Investigators watched the security footage from the date the ex-boyfriend had purchased two gasoline cans.
When the ex-girlfriend called the man and asked why he set her businesses on fire. He said he didn’t. He’d been there making himself a sandwich.
Rather than go to trial, the 50-year-old man pleaded guilty to one count of using a fire/explosive to damage or destroy property with injury to persons.
A judge sentenced him to the maximum for the crime, factoring in his violent past—20 years in federal prison where, unlike state prisons, there is no early parole.
A U.S. Attorney associated with this case said about the sentencing,
“Protecting victims and the public from violent criminals is our office’s number one priority.”
Source: U.S. District Court, U.S. Attorney’s Office, ABC KATV 7
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