Accused serial arsonist Kevin M. Walker has been charged with setting fire to the Capehart Mill in Norwich in April and the former Norwich State Hospital more than three years ago.
Walker, 22, who is in custody at the New Haven Correctional Center, was brought to Superior Court in Norwich Friday where Norwich police and state police each served him with the arrest warrants charging him with first-degree arson, third-degree burglary and first-degree criminal mischief.
Walker has been charged with several crimes by a task force investigating a string of arsons in and around Norwich over the past five years and has confessed to police that he is a "serial arsonist."
According to an arrest warrant affidavit in the Capehart case, Walker enlisted five others to join him at the unoccupied mill in the Greeneville section of the city on April 27 and bragged beforehand that he planned to set a fire "like nobody else has ever seen."
Ramon Ortiz, Walker and Laura J. McDonald climbed over a chain link fence topped with barbed wire to gain entry to the mill, then used gasoline to start fires at three points of origin, police said. Three others, Michael L. Baker, Victoria Ercoli and James Vanech, stood lookout or watched.
The fire took three days and seven million gallons of water to extinguish. Police said the blaze exposed firefighters and neighboring residents to asbestos. A city firefighter was treated for a non-life-threatening injury.
Walker is the sixth and last person expected to be arrested in the investigation, said Norwich police Sgt. Peter Camp, who added that the task force is still looking at other cases.
The Norwich State Hospital fire occurred on Aug. 11, 2007, and completely consumed a room on the second floor of the abandoned hospital's administration building. Walker is the second person to be charged in the case. Police recently charged Steven LaMotte, 23, of New Britain, in the case.
Walker's next court date is Oct. 5. His cases have all been transferred to the New London court where major crimes are tried.
This article was
written by Karen Florin
and published by The Day
on Saturday, September 18th 2010 and NOT owned by nor affiliated with opacity.us, but are recorded here solely for educational use.