In Westmoreland County, a Fairfield Township man already in jail for allegedly stealing an ATV has been charged with setting fire to a vacant mobile home in West Bolivar.
35-year-old Charles McCurdy Jr. was arraigned last Friday and will face a preliminary hearing this Friday on two counts of felony arson, plus felony criminal mischief, and a summary charge of dangerous burning. He’s in the Westmoreland County Prison with bond set at $150,000.
The fire occurred on March 26th of last year at a trailer on Johnston Street owned by Linda McGinnis. According to TribLive.com, state police fire marshal Seth Helman reported that neighbors heard an explosion and watched a man get “blown off the front porch”, then get up and limp away to a nearby mobile home. Several days later, Helman interviewed McCurdy, noting a cast on his arm that the suspect said was the result of a fall from a ladder days before the fire, but a search warrant of Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center records showed that McCurdy was treated just hours after the fire. Confronted with the evidence last month, McCurdy admitted pouring gasoline on the porch of the mobile home and lighting it.
In addition to the hearing next week in the arson case, McCurdy will have his preliminary hearing in the stolen ATV case, which happened in September.
[xyz-ihs snippet=”ST-Bank-Debt-Consolidation”]
