Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 17, 1995                   TAG: 9502170039
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

19-YEAR-OLD CALLED `TIME BOMB'

``We know he's a time bomb that's gone off twice now,'' Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Phillips said. ``The important thing is that we keep him off the streets of Roanoke.''

Jermaine Anderson had been scheduled to have a preliminary hearing Thursday on charges of arson and four counts of attempted capital murder. Instead, an agreement was reached in which two charges were dropped and a hearing on the remaining three was waived.

The case now goes to a grand jury in Circuit Court, where Anderson will face a maximum sentence of two life terms plus 10 years in prison.

When he was 7, Anderson was charged with setting a fire that spread to an adjacent home and killed a 66-year-old woman. He became the youngest person in Virginia to be charged with murder, but a judge dismissed the charge after ruling that Anderson was too immature to help in his defense and did not understand what he was accused of doing.

Ultimately, the court recommended that he receive counseling and instruction about the dangers of fire.

On the night of Dec. 21, police and firefighters were called to the same block of Patton Avenue Northwest where the 1982 fire killed Kathleen Turner. They found smoke and flames coming from a house where Anderson lived with his grandmother and other relatives.

Anderson is accused of taking a piece of paper, lighting it on the kitchen stove, running upstairs and setting a bedroom on fire. Three family members escaped without serious injury.

Police have said they saw Anderson standing at the top of a stairway as flames rose behind him. He is accused of throwing a 12-inch kitchen knife at a lieutenant, missing him by inches.

Anderson had been ``acting strangely'' in the week before the fire, Phillips said. Authorities believe he became angry and set the fire after his grandmother mentioned that he might have to receive psychiatric treatment.

The two attempted capital murder charges that were dropped involved two of three family members who were in the house when the fire started: Anderson's grandmother and his young niece.

Those charges were dropped to avoid what Phillips called the ``uncomfortable situation'' of having reluctant family members testify against Anderson. The 19-year-old still is charged with the attempted capital murder of an invalid man who lived in the home. An attempted capital murder charge involving the police officer was reduced to attempted malicious wounding as part of Thursday's agreement.

At an earlier hearing, a judge ordered a mental evaluation of Anderson, but Assistant Public Defender William Fitzpatrick said it is too early to say if he will pursue an insanity defense.

Anderson has been held without bond since his arrest the night of the fire.