Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercraft, or forests. The crime is typically classified as a felony, with instances involving a greater degree of risk to human life or property carrying a stricter penalty. Arson which results in death can be further prosecuted as manslaughter or murder. A common motive for arson is to commit insurance fraud. In such cases, a person destroys their own property by burning it and then lies about the cause in order to collect against their insurance policy.
Cameron Todd Willingham was an American man who was convicted and executed for the murder of his three young children by arson at the family home in Corsicana, Texas, on December 23, 1991. Since Willingham's 2004 execution, significant controversy has arisen over the legitimacy of the guilty verdict and the interpretation of the evidence that was used to convict him of arson and murder.
Westley Allan Dodd was an American convicted serial killer and sex offender. In 1989, he sexually assaulted and murdered three young boys in Vancouver, Washington. He was arrested later that year after a failed attempt to abduct a six-year-old boy at a movie theatre.
Colin Ireland was a British serial killer known as the Gay Slayer, because his victims were gay. Criminologist David Wilson believes that Ireland was a psychopath.
Anti-abortion violence is violence committed against individuals and organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion counseling. Incidents of violence have included destruction of property, including vandalism; crimes against people, including kidnapping, stalking, assault, attempted murder, and murder; and crimes affecting both people and property, as well as arson and terrorism, such as bombings.
Charles Frederick Albright also known as the Eyeball Killer, was an American murderer and suspected serial killer from Texas who was convicted of killing one woman and suspected of killing two others in 1991. He was incarcerated in the John Montford Psychiatric Unit in Lubbock, Texas.
The Green Scare is legal action by the US government against the radical environmental movement, that occurred mostly in the 2000s. It alludes to the Red Scares, periods of fear over communist infiltration of US society.
John Leonard Orr is an American convicted serial arsonist, mass murderer, and former firefighter. A fire captain and arson investigator in Glendale, California, Orr was convicted of serial arson and four counts of murder; he is believed to have set nearly 2,000 fires in a 30-year arson spree, most of them between 1984 and 1991, making him the most prolific serial arsonist in American history.
Keith Hunter Jesperson is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and authorities. Many of his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was Jesperson's preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.
David J. Icove is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Profiler and FBI Academy Instructor in the elite Behavioral Analysis Unit. He was one of the FBI's first criminal profilers to specialize in the apprehension of serial arsonists and bombers. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Forensic Engineers and co-author, along with Gerald A. Haynes, of Kirk's Fire Investigation, the leading textbook in the field of fire investigation.
The University of Washington firebombing incident was an arson which took place in the early morning hours of May 21, 2001 when a firebomb was set off at Merrill Hall, a part of the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture, causing an estimated $1.5 to $4.1 million in damages. By 2012 four of five accused conspirators behind the attack admitted their guilt in plea bargains. A fifth committed suicide in federal detention while awaiting trial.
Thomas A. Sweatt is a convicted serial arsonist. He has set over 350 fires in and around Washington, D.C. most of which occurred in 2003 and 2004, making him one of the most prolific serial arsonists in American history. Following his arrest in April 2005, Sweatt admitted to setting fires for more than 30 years. He is currently serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution Petersburg Medium in Hopewell, Virginia. Two of his fires killed two elderly women, Annie Brown in 2002 and Lou Edna Jones in 2003, while a third, set in 1985, killed a man named Roy Picott and his wife, Bessie Mae Duncan.
Peter Tredget, formerly Bruce George Peter Lee, is a British serial killer and arsonist. He confessed to a total of 11 acts of arson, pleading guilty to 26 counts of manslaughter. Fourteen of these were overturned in two separate appeals. Lee was sentenced to indefinite secure hospital detention in 1981, and remains detained as of February 2022.
John William Cooper is a Welsh serial killer. On 26 May 2011, he was given a whole life order for the 1985 double murder of siblings Richard and Helen Thomas, and the 1989 double murder of Peter and Gwenda Dixon. The murders were known in the media as the "Pembrokeshire Murders" or the "Coastal Murders". Cooper was also sentenced for the rape of a 16-year-old girl and a sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl, both carried out while a group of five teenagers were held at gunpoint in March 1996, in a wooded area behind the Mount Estate in Cooper's hometown of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.
The 2011–2012 Los Angeles arson attacks were a series of fires started on December 29, 2011, in Los Angeles, California. It was the worst case of arson reported in the area since the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Harry Burkhart, then 24, who was wanted in Germany on suspicion of burning down his home, was charged in Los Angeles in January 2012 with 28 counts of arson of property and nine counts of arson of an inhabited structure. Prosecutors said that Burkhart was "motivated by rage against Americans" and sought to terrorize as many people as possible when he torched dozens of cars, homes and garages late at night, when most residents were sleeping, to inflict maximum fear and damage.
The Savoy Hotel on Darlinghurst Road in the Kings Cross area of Sydney, Australia burned down on 25 December 1975 with the loss of 15 lives. It was the deadliest hotel fire in Australia at that time.
On December 24, 2001, arsonists set fire to the Woodbine Building Supply Company building in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, causing an explosion and leading to one of the largest fires in the city's history. The arsonists were conspiring with John Magno, co-owner of the store, who desired to destroy the struggling business to collect a fraudulent insurance claim and clear the site for construction of a condominium development. The fire led to the evacuation of over 50 homes on Christmas morning, and the death of one of the arsonists. After many years of sitting as an idle lot, it was replaced by a condo building, Carmelina Condominiums, completed in 2015.
Stafford Creek Corrections Center (SCCC) is a Washington State Department of Corrections state prison for men located in Aberdeen, Washington. The facility opened in 2000, has an operating capacity of 1936 inmates, and supports a mix of minimum, medium, and maximum security levels.
Gerald "Jerry" Hurst was an American chemist and fire investigator. Before becoming noted for arson investigations, Hurst designed explosives for warfare, invented a binary explosive device known as Kinepak and developed an improved chemical compound to create Liquid Paper. He also devised an explosive called Astrolite as well as the Mylar balloon.
Mark Errin Rust is a convicted Australian serial sex murderer and rapist: he was convicted of two murders committed in 1999 and 2001 respectively. Rust is currently on an indefinite detention order.
