{"id":11974,"date":"2014-05-07T10:18:37","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T14:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=11974"},"modified":"2014-05-07T10:40:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T14:40:07","slug":"new-garden-police-arson-suspect-in-custody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=11974","title":{"rendered":"New Garden Police: Arson suspect in custody"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a056-year-old Avondale man accused of setting his mobile home on fire<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/strong>, Managing Editor, The Times<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Stacey<\/a>

Stacey Lee Lewis Jr.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Avondale man suspected of setting his mobile home ablaze on Tuesday, May 6, in Avondale, was taken into custody later the same day, said New Garden Township Police.<\/p>\n

Police said at 8:15 p.m., an officer responded to the unit block of Santilli Road for an anonymous tip advising that Stacey Lee Lewis Jr., 56, had been seen in the area. Upon arrival, officers located Lewis, and he was arrested without incident, arraigned, and transported to Chester County Prison after failing to post $50,000 bail, police said.<\/p>\n

A three-week marital dispute prompted the fire, according to the criminal complaint. Lewis was allegedly upset about his wife\u2019s activities and threatened that she would \u201cbe coming home to nothing\u201d if she didn\u2019t change her behavior, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

Police said they responded at 8:41 a.m. Tuesday morning to a mobile home in the 300 block of Ellicott Road in Avondale, where an officer found Lewis\u2019s son, who had called 9-1-1 from a neighbor\u2019s residence. \u00a0The son said that his father woke him up and told him to leave the house, police said. After the son exited the home with his father, he said his father re-entered the residence, advising him to wait in the car, at which point he heard glass breaking, smoke detectors going off, and fire crackling from inside the residence when his father reappeared at the front door, police said.<\/p>\n

The complaint said that when the son yelled at his father to open the home\u2019s door after he locked it, his father replied: \u201cLet it burn.\u201d Fearing that his father would hurt him if he tried to enter the home, the son ran to a neighbor\u2019s for help and said when he returned, his father had disappeared, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

Chester County Fire Marshal John Weer and Pennsylvania State Police Fire Marshal John Cornetta determined during a preliminary investigation that the fire was intentionally set, the complaint said. Weer said a strong smell of gasoline was present in several areas and a plastic gas can was located near one of the bedrooms, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

Stacey Lewis faces three counts of arson \u2013 danger or death or bodily injury, inhabited building or structure, and endangerment of inhabited buildings \u2013 possession of explosive and incendiary material, and recklessly endangering another person, court records said. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 16. Police said Lewis\u2019s spouse, Donna Lewis, 51, was located and interviewed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a056-year-old Avondale man accused of setting his mobile home on fire By Kathleen Brady Shea, Managing Editor, The Times The Avondale man suspected of setting his mobile home ablaze on Tuesday, May 6, in Avondale, was taken into custody later the same day, said New Garden Township Police. Police said at 8:15 p.m., an officer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,1],"tags":[680,924,4574],"class_list":["post-11974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-avondale","tag-new-garden-township-police","tag-stacey-lee-lewis-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}