Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 8, 1994 TAG: 9402080198
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
The youth, who is not being identified because of his age, was charged with torching a vacant house on Patterson Avenue on Nov. 25 and threatening to burn another on Chapman Avenue.
The Patterson Avenue fire was one of a half-dozen suspicious blazes that broke out during a two-week period in the area of 11th Street Southwest. Most of the fires gutted vacant homes.
After hearing an alibi defense in Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, Judge John Ferguson dismissed the charges.
The youth's mother testified that she and her son had been out of town during the time of the fire. She produced motel and rental-car receipts to back her account.
"We had a whole stack of documents to show that he was in Florida at the time," Assistant Public Defender Roger Dalton said.
Prosecutors had relied on the testimony of two teen-age girls who said the defendant had told them before the Nov. 25 fire that he thought the house was going to burn, according to Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Gerald Teaster.
After the fire, the 15-year-old threatened to burn the girls' home if they said anything about the earlier conversation, according to testimony. But the youth's mother said he was with her in Florida at the time of the alleged comments.
by CNB