NateDawg39
02-21-2010, 05:08 PM
CNN) -- Two arrests have been made in a string of deliberately set church fires in east Texas, a fire official said Sunday.
Neal Franklin, fire chief of Tyler, Texas, would not divulge further details. A news conference was scheduled for later Sunday afternoon.
Ten church fires have happened in east Texas this year. Nine of them have been ruled arson.
No clear theme links the fires, which have struck churches of different denominations, including Baptist, Methodist and Church of Christ Scientist, at different times of the day and on different days of the week, authorities have said. While the churches are in small towns, not all of them are in remote locations.
Investigators are not sure whether an 11th church fire, also ruled arson, in Temple, Texas, is related to the others, said Tom Crowley, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Temple is about 150 miles from the area where the other blazes have been concentrated, in an area east of Dallas, Texas.
The ATF on February 12 issued sketches of three people sought in the fires.
"We have a serial arsonist out there," Robert Champion, special agent in charge of ATF's Dallas office, said Friday. "We need help from the public."
The church fires have left east Texas residents on edge. Police patrols have been stepped up near east Texas churches, and in some cases church members have been staying at the properties overnight to protect them.
"I think maybe I would characterize the mood of our people as perplexed," Randy Daniels, mayor of Athens, Texas, said earlier this month. Three churches have been set on fire in the town of about 12,000 people.
In Tyler, Texas, the Tyland Baptist Church was among those set ablaze. Pastor David Mahfood said there was nothing left from the January 16 fire, "not a Bible, not a hymnal. We've got some bricks. That's it."
At another destroyed church, Russell United Methodist in Wills Point, Texas, members salvaged what they could from the ashes. A large brass cross that hung over the church's choir loft was recently found, church member Kay Crosby said. "It was kind of twisted, but we're going to have it restored," she said.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/21/texas.church.fires/index.html?hpt=T2
Neal Franklin, fire chief of Tyler, Texas, would not divulge further details. A news conference was scheduled for later Sunday afternoon.
Ten church fires have happened in east Texas this year. Nine of them have been ruled arson.
No clear theme links the fires, which have struck churches of different denominations, including Baptist, Methodist and Church of Christ Scientist, at different times of the day and on different days of the week, authorities have said. While the churches are in small towns, not all of them are in remote locations.
Investigators are not sure whether an 11th church fire, also ruled arson, in Temple, Texas, is related to the others, said Tom Crowley, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Temple is about 150 miles from the area where the other blazes have been concentrated, in an area east of Dallas, Texas.
The ATF on February 12 issued sketches of three people sought in the fires.
"We have a serial arsonist out there," Robert Champion, special agent in charge of ATF's Dallas office, said Friday. "We need help from the public."
The church fires have left east Texas residents on edge. Police patrols have been stepped up near east Texas churches, and in some cases church members have been staying at the properties overnight to protect them.
"I think maybe I would characterize the mood of our people as perplexed," Randy Daniels, mayor of Athens, Texas, said earlier this month. Three churches have been set on fire in the town of about 12,000 people.
In Tyler, Texas, the Tyland Baptist Church was among those set ablaze. Pastor David Mahfood said there was nothing left from the January 16 fire, "not a Bible, not a hymnal. We've got some bricks. That's it."
At another destroyed church, Russell United Methodist in Wills Point, Texas, members salvaged what they could from the ashes. A large brass cross that hung over the church's choir loft was recently found, church member Kay Crosby said. "It was kind of twisted, but we're going to have it restored," she said.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/21/texas.church.fires/index.html?hpt=T2