Teen jailed in arson case

Youth faces six years for deaths

A fire that kept investigators busy for a almost a year has led to the conviction of a 15-year old.

According to Detective David Jasinski, city officials questioned over 100 people during their investigation into a suspected arson case after a Feb. 28, 1998 fire. The fire killed 12-year old Angelique Hamilton and her grandmother Irene Springer, 70. Two male residents were also injured in the blaze, one of whom suffered from first and second degree burns, as well as burns to his windpipe from smoke inhalation.

Initially there were no suspects. In time, previously convicted arsonists and others known or suspected to have been involved in arson-related crimes came under investigation.

All of the suspects were eventually ruled out except for one: a 14-year-old boy who had been seen near the crime scene that night. The boy had been convicted of arson a year earlier when he set fire to a trash bin on South Main, and had also been charged in three burglaries and criminal damaging.

The investigation into the cause of the fire was handled by the Oberlin Fire Department and a state fire marshal. In order to conclude the cause of the fire, they first had to go through a process of elimination to absolutely prove that the fire did not have accidental causes, such as an unattended electrical appliance or kerosene heater.

According to Fire Chief Dennis Kirin, "The investigation determined that there were significant accidental causes." So many that investigators concluded that the fire was the work of an arsonist. At that point the Oberlin Police Department, state fire marshals, and Lorain County prosecutors started an investigation of the fire.

According to Jasinski, the boy's name kept coming up in the questioning of witnesses, some of whom stated that the boy told them that he may have done it. The almost year-long investigation led up to the arrest of the boy, now 15, at the Lorain County Detention Home where he was being held for the rape of a female elementary student.

The suspect originally pleaded not-guilty and was to be tried as an adult. "Our goal is to have him committed," stated head of the county juvenile division Lisa Locke Graves. Later the prosecuting attorney offered a plea bargain whose confinements called for the young man to change his plea to guilty. In return he would be placed in a detention facility until his 21st birthday.

His state-appointed attorney accepted the plea bargain, and the boy pled guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated arson, criminal damaging, rape, and the charge of being ungovernable.

The plea bargain released the prosecutors from having to try the child as an adult, where they would have been required to present probable cause and as well as the reason that the child was not amenable to the juvenile justice system. Since he entered a guilty plea, the trial did not take place and he was sent directly to the Department of Youth Services in Circleville.

Larry Springer was one of the men injured in the fire. "This tragedy has changed our lives forever and is not easily forgotten or forgiven," he said. "We only hope that the culprit be punished to the fullest extent of the law."

The punishment in this case was not what Springer felt was the fullest extent of the law. After the trial he said, "I would ask the prosecutor and the state to refine the juvenile laws that [juveniles] can be punished longer than six years."

Though the family was not pleased with the outcome of the trial, the police and fire departments were pleased with the outcome of their investigation. "Less than 20 percent of the people who start arson fires are ever found. I think the result of this investigation has a lot of bearing on how well the investigation was conducted," said Kirin.

Detectives still do not know how exactly the fire was started. Contrary to other reports, a cigarette being thrown onto the porch of the house was not the cause. Kirin said the chances of that scenario having happened are almost an impossibility. The young man convicted of starting the fire has not disclosed how the blaze was started.

When asked if the police have yet found out the motive involved in starting the fire, Jasinski said, "We'll probably never know."