Suspect: Church Fires Started As A Joke
- From: "Su" <no.name@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 17:52:15 -0600
Three Birmingham college students could face federal charges
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; Posted: 6:23 p.m. EST (23:23 GMT)
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) -- Three Birmingham college students could face
federal charges in connection with a string of Alabama church fires that is
described in court papers as a joke that "got out of hand," authorities said
Wednesday.
The students -- Ben Moseley and Russell Debusk, both 19, and Matthew Lee
Cloyd, 20 -- are suspected in nine of the 10 fires last month. The suspects
have not yet been indicted. In court filings, all three admitted being
involved in the arson fires.
"It's a good day when we can tell the people of Alabama that we believe this
is an isolated instance," Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said.
All nine fires occurred in rural counties southwest of Birmingham -- five in
Bibb County on February 3, and four in Greene, Sumter and Pickens counties
on February 7. Five of the churches had predominantly black congregations,
and four had predominantly white members.
No one has been arrested in connection with a 10th fire, set February 11 at
a mostly white Lamar County church.
"We don't think that there is any type of conspiracy against organized
religion or against the Baptists or against religious beliefs in
particular," Riley said. "I think that, today, Alabama and all of the
faith-based community in this state can rest a little easier."
Moseley and Debusk are both theater students at Birmingham-Southern College,
which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. They made initial
appearances Wednesday
morning in a federal court in Birmingham.
A bond hearing was set for Friday afternoon, U.S. Attorney Alice Martin told
reporters.
Debusk's lawyer, Donald Colee, had no immediate comment. Efforts to reach
lawyers for the other defendants were unsuccessful.
Diversion 'did not work'
Birmingham-Southern President David Pollick said the students have been
suspended and barred from campus since their arrest. He pledged that
Birmingham-Southern will help rebuild the churches "both financially and in
terms of our own labor."
"The students, faculty and staff of our college are at once shocked and
outraged, and we share the sorrow of our neighbors whose churches
represented the heart and souls of their communities," he said.
Cloyd, who attends the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was taken into
custody later in the day, federal law enforcement sources said. No hearing
was immediately set for him, she said.
UAB spokesman Gary Mans said Cloyd was a junior who transferred to the
university in fall 2005 and lived off-campus. He would not disclose Cloyd's
field of study or any disciplinary action, citing federal privacy laws.
According to court papers released Wednesday, Cloyd told a witness that he
and Moseley "had done something stupid."
"Cloyd stated to the witness that Moseley did it as a joke and it got out of
hand," an affidavit in the case states. "Cloyd stated that they set a church
on fire."
Moseley and Debusk admitted involvement in the fires, as well, the affidavit
states. Debusk said he was at the scene of the fires in Bibb County, where
the three had been deer hunting the first weekend of February, and kicked in
the door of two churches that later were set ablaze.
Moseley told investigators that he and Cloyd set the other four fires "as a
diversion to throw investigators off," the affidavit states. When questioned
by investigators, "Moseley said the diversion obviously did not work."
None of the three has a previous criminal record, said Richard Montgomery,
Alabama's state fire marshal.
Moseley and Debusk have performed in campus productions, said Mark Doll, a
Birmingham-Southern sophomore who said he plays in a band with Moseley. Doll
said he never heard Moseley speak of religion.
"There was nothing that we can see that would lead us to think he would do
something like this," he said.
Pollick said he met with Birmingham-Southern students Wednesday afternoon
and said they are determined to repair a reputation they said was
"tarnished" by their classmates' arrests.
He said students, faculty and staff now feel connected to the communities
"in a way that we didn't, in all honesty, yesterday."
"The one thing we are certain of is that this is a place where we belong,"
he said. "This is a place where we should extend our muscles and our
resources and help seek out more resources."
Tire treads tip off investigators
Officials said the arrests were the result of good police work by a task
force of about 250 state, federal and local law enforcement officers.
Investigators had said they were looking for a dark-colored sport-utility
vehicle that had been seen at the burned churches. According to the
affidavit, tread marks left at the scene of four fires matched a rarely
purchased set of all-terrain tires.
Investigators tracked a set of those tires from a tire shop in the
Birmingham suburb of Pelham to a green Toyota 4Runner registered to Cloyd's
mother. She told agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives that her son was the vehicle's primary driver, the
affidavit states.
That was one of about 1,000 leads involving 500 vehicles and about 1,300
people that investigators chased down over the past month, ATF spokesman Jim
Cavanaugh said.
"We just pushed and pushed and pushed until we could make the break,"
Cavanaugh said.
CNN's Rusty Dornin, David Mattingly, Mike Phelan and Susan Walsh contributed
to this report.
.
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