In 2005, Thomas A. Sweatt admitted in court to setting 45 fires across the Washington region, claiming two lives. He also learned the name of the deceased: Bessie Mae Duncan.Sweatt was saddened to learn of Duncan's death, but in his mind she was simply the collateral damage he had to incur in service to his fantasies. On the front porch, he poured the gasoline beneath the front door, held it there with the towel, and struck a match. Thomas Powderly's birthday is 06/11/1960 and is 62 years old. Unbeknownst to Sweatt, Picott underwent a series of surgeries at Washington Hospital Center in a vain effort to save him. it looks the very same front + back -- the fire was set at the back on the second level. Jonathan has written several articles that have been published in Fire Engineering Magazine and Firehouse Magazine. A federal judge would eventually sentence him to two lifetimes plus 136 years for his crimes. "It's amazing that I remember that phrase.It's etched in my memory." And in the strangest way, he was. As Fulkerson staked him out at the KFC one day, he watched from his unmarked car as Sweatt walked outside the restaurant, got down on his knees, and started scraping stale gum from the cracks in the sidewalk.After not seeing any activity that would tie Sweatt to the fires, Fulkerson and a D.C. detective walked into the KFC to interview him. When coming and leaving that restaurant, I put on a mask to hide the other person which took over after closing.The work was taxing. Roy Picott died from his injuries on March 5, 1985. He is a career firefighter with the Annapolis Fire Department and Deputy Chief with the Dunkirk Volunteer Fire Department in Maryland. Sweatt pleaded guilty to 45 fires and was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole. Fulkerson said Sweatt managed to stay under the radar for so many years because he didnt fit the accepted profile of a serial arsonist white, older and feeling wronged by society. If that man was their firesetter, investigators imagined he was lonesome, anxiety-ridden, and hobbled by a deep sense of failure. Dr. Thomas Sweat, MD is a Cardiology Specialist in Jeffersonville, IN and has over 34 years of experience in the medical field. Main Menu. They were sent out into the streets on needle-in-the-haystack stakeouts that lasted all night long, eventually listening to as many as five different police and fire radios to cover all the jurisdictions Sweatt was hitting. Sometimes he would film them from his car and later masturbate to the videos. Years later, Sweatt told City Paper that after his chance encounter with Picott on the street, he decided he liked him; he later confessed to fantasizing about his victims being caught in the flames. There was just one stop to make -- at the gas station, where he topped off an empty 2-liter soda bottle with gasoline, then threw it into his bag along with a towel.He parked near Quincy Place and got out of the car with his bag. Then on Valentine's Day, he lit one of his devices on the stairwell of an apartment building on Blair Road just over the District line in Montgomery County, where investigators had never followed him. (Under Sweatt's proffer with the government, investigators have been gagged from publicly discussing Sweatt's motives or certain fires he may have admitted to during questioning. "We were pulling log books from decades ago," says Daley.Even more disheartening, catching the arsonist in the act seemed nearly impossible. Agents did everything they could to enhance the video, even sending it off to NASA, but the license plate and make of the car were hopelessly grainy. . SWEATT---Cemetery surveyed August 3, 2001. 1 a ; ; . That depress feeling wouldn't go away. In the footage, a firetruck raced to the burning home; facing the other way was someone in a stopped car, flashing his lights at the oncoming engine. Sort of like the same feeling at Evarts St. The fires were admitted to during a proffer session with the arson task force as part of a plea deal in 2005 . He is currently serving his sentence at the . This was a good fire and still see the funky old cars parked on the side.Lastly, the house 1315 Otis St N.E. It's dated the same day as the fire, even though much of the house was destroyed. bumpkin london closed. That report suggested recklessness on the Picotts' part, which never sat well with Rodney. With Sweatt's help investigators closed out 353 fires -- apparently all he could remember -- stretching back into the '80s. Thomas set over 350 fires.Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@xavier_pennFollow me on Instagra. Weve always understood the importance of calling out corruption, regardless of political affiliation. Thomas A. Sweatt is a convicted serial arsonist. This fire was on the side of house and burned a little. Sweatt admitted to setting that fire and killing Bessie Mae Duncan in a letter to me late last year. "Why would somebody do that?" That was a huge fire that could be seen + heard mile away -- It was amazing to watch. Vito Maggiolo, a spokesman for the D.C. fire department, remembers the fire well. He sped there in his own car. They were Circle 7 convenience stores: One on Kenilworth Avenue NE, the other on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, just a short walk from the old Kenny & Paul's Barber Shop. If he followed the story of Evarts Street, then he knew that he'd killed somebody yet continued setting fires anyway. None died, but several were hurt. Sweatt, he says, came off as the one guy who really had his life in order. We felt an obligation to the victims, said Scott Fulkerson, who with his partner led the arson investigation for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and was explaining why it was important to get closure even if it meant forgoing additional charges. His passions include fishing, crabbing, and traveling. [1], On Thursday, August 4, 2005, two fatal arson cases in the District of Columbia were closed with the arrest of 50-year-old Thomas Sweatt of the 500 blocks in Lebaum Street SE. 3Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him . Investigators started to think their arsonist was a jarhead. He died in June 1972, in Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee . He is an adjunct instructor with the University of Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute. They wouldn't learn for another year-and-a-half that the man behind the wheel was Sweatt, gleefully taunting them.On Feb. 6, 2004, Sweatt ventured to the Alexandria section of Fairfax County and set a fire at an apartment building. The front porch is almost completely gone. In 2013, Fulkerson spoke to the International Association of Arson Investigators in Las Vegas and used Sweatt as a case study in solving tough crimes. The restaurant sat along a busy yet particularly dreary stretch of highway, where there were plenty of gas stations but no semblance of a neighborhood. Once it did, the fire would reach the wood or aluminum siding. I always wanted to walk up town to McCory's Dime Store only to steal Doll babies (my brothers stole racing cars toys) -- even look in white folks trash and find yeast bread just to taste it and bring it home.I get aroused just the thought of big shoes + Big Patten Leather boots.From childhood all the way up to even now. Letters From an Arsonist. . Arsonist apologizes for crimes but does not say why. Investigators closed 353 cases with Sweatt's confession. texas sage tea benefits. It appeared to be just another sad, needless fire in a city that was accustomed to seeing thousands each year. You'd think we were exhausted, but he looked worse. In 2005, Thomas Sweatt was arrested and eventually confessed to over 340 arson-set fires that killed 4 people. side (a whole complex under construction) which damaged net 1 million dollars because a pipeline explosion. He appeared to be an average working schlub, a loyal KFC employee with only minor, long-ago brushes with the law. Sweatt started branching out into new counties simply because he was getting bored.As the holiday season arrived, he went on a tear. There's no more guessing. "It's not like he's walking around," he said. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Everything he did was so neat -- he knew where everything was.He'd bring in coffee and doughnuts for everyone in the morning. 20 years in the making, the 1971 Titans are inducted into the ACPS Hall of Fame. Fame Meter (0/100) Has their own Wikipedia Page. . says Daley.There were different theories on Sweatt's travels. Ever since his early years he knew he was wired differently.As a child growing up I never did the "normal" thing like learning how to ride a bike, play sports, do boyish things. That was the end of it. Some of the burned cars would remain at the spot for many days and I'd drive back that night and just stare and smell the smoke. In an industry with an astronomical turnover rate -- the average fast-food worker quits or gets fired within four months -- Sweatt would devote a rather astonishing 12 years to the same KFC location, most of it spent hovering over the grill and grease fryers and struggling to keep the kitchen clean.New employees at the KFC found a cook manning an immaculate station. Invest with us. ***In June 2003, a raging two-alarm fire on Evarts Street NE claimed the life of 86-year-old Lou Edna Jones. 14 ratings2 reviews. Menu vscode compare with clipboard. Sweatt often tossed incendiary devices into police cars and then watched them burn. She called Fulkerson and gave him what he'd been waiting nearly two years for -- a name. Anything dealing with motive in this story comes directly from Sweatt's letters. ***God has been merciful and kind -- I want to obey and keep His will. Fulkerson said he told the investigators at the seminar, You may have a serial arsonist in your jurisdiction and you dont know it yet. The ATF agent said he tells other investigators that suspects like Sweatt can be coaxed out of silence through feigned admiration. He burned the garage that stood behind his apartment. The Laboratory provided valuable forensic leads, including the fact that the same suspect was probably responsible for 14 of the initial fires. "Rodney said he took comfort in knowing Sweatt was serving a double life sentence. In fact, there was a psychological element to the expansion. He worked at the KFC at the corner of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road in Northeast, where he'd come on board in 1993. Picotts son, Rodney Picott, a police officer in New York, said in a recent interview that investigators had told him in 2005 that Sweatt had confessed to setting the fire that killed his parents, and Picott accepted that it would not become part of the formal charges. But there was a bike on the porch that attracted me to that house, plus the location, very quiet and trees on the other side so it was easy to escape -- the media had this one all wrong -- there was no man riding a bike past -- for my car was only 3 houses down. That was all Rodney knew -- the detective never told him the full story. I like barbershops because there were always attractive men there -- crazy as it may sound, I had a fascination for barbers.Throughout the '80s and '90s, Sweatt lit scores of fires throughout the eastern side of the city. 115 followers 115 connections 115 connections The other was that of a lonesome and violent obsessive who never shared his unspeakable urges with anyone. Jail cant be any worst than the life I had then and believe it or not life is pretty much the same, it just I'm not free to go wherever I want to.The investigators who debriefed Sweatt after his arrest were floored by his recall of years-old blazes, which almost invariably squared with official reports and witness accounts. They were surprised by what they found. Where does Thomas E Sweatt Jr. live? In two different fires, elderly women were unable to escape and later died. I kept them hid as you stated in your letter. Thomas Sweatt has been working as a Director, Corporate Accounts at Smiths Medical for 4 years. "Thomas Sweatt: Inside the Mind of D.C.'s Most Notorious Arsonist" i. s also available in # ebook format. I'd visited dozens of buildings he'd torched during the course of the manhunt, and I wanted to understand what made him choose one home over another. Sweatt later admitted to ATF Agents that he was responsible for an additional 300 fires. . Jonathan Riffe has been involved in the fire service since 1996. "It's Thomas Sweatt," she said. $ 19.95. As a stipulation of any plea agreement that might be offered, the government insisted that investigators be able to interview Sweatt about his motives. As you noticed it was again aluminumWell Dave, I hope I've tickal your mind a little! The company supplied their black bags to just two shops in the D.C. area. When the nearby school let out in the afternoon the kids would pile through the door and tear the place up, complicating things by ordering pizzas (it was a KFCnPizza Hut hybrid). Hide Archive footage (1 credit) 2010 Extreme Forensics (TV Series documentary) Self - Suspect. Fulkerson, now in charge of the ATF office in Richmond, said his most difficult task was telling the four siblings who had escaped the blaze at Quincy Place that the flames that killed their parents, Bessie Mae Duncan and Roy R. Picott, were apparently started by Sweatt and not by a discarded cigarette, as the D.C. fire department had initially determined. We need your support in this difficult time. When at last he was arrested in 2005, he confessed to over 340 arson-set fires that claimed the lives of 4 people. Virginia officials called in members of the arson task force, who had never thought they'd need to travel west of the Potomac River in the course of the investigation. Sweatts agreement with prosecutors barred them from using those talks to charge him with more crimes, according to a federal law enforcement agent and a man whose father died in a blaze and was briefed by police. It was one of those moments that reminded Sweatt how oppressive wintertime in the city could be.On the sidewalk, he spotted a stranger walking in the opposite direction. As far as psychological profiling goes, they were nearly spot-on. He reported false fires on his block just to bring the engines out. BT4620. "About a year and a half ago, I sent a letter to Sweatt at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Ave + Minnesota Ave. There was a level of education. In 2005, Thomas Sweatt was arrested and eventually confessed to over 340 arson-set fires that killed 4 people. He had emotional reactions to the newscasts, lashing out at residents who told reporters offhandedly that the arsonist needed mental help. "I still have a million questions for him," says Bob Luckett, a fire investigator who spent several days with Sweatt after his arrest. "With the cooperation of the owner of the two Circle 7 stores, agents affixed thumbnail-size stainless steel chips to the bottom of every bag in both stores. But that was the good part of "Tom" that people saw and only knew. A car captured on video leaving the scene of a fire had been traced back to a man who lived right around the corner from the Circle 7 store on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. )I liked the attention from setting fires; the Blue + red lights flashing from the firetrucks + police cars, the rushing of firefighters hooking up the hoses to put out the flames and people gathered to watch.They were in arms length to arrest me. "It shows there's nothing stopping him," says Fulkerson.The home-design buff in Sweatt would have admired the tasteful white wood siding and teal windowpanes of the Jones house. Way too long and way too early for a fire, 11:30 pm. The official fire report at the time mistakenly blamed a dropped cigarette for the reason the fire started. "The official fire report on the Picott blaze was dubious on its face. A light snow . This week on Crime Binge the girls discuss Thomas Sweatt, a serial arsonist who was responsible for at least 353 fires. Or maybe he just never forgot the D.C. officers who mocked his soft voice when he took their orders at KFC.Whatever it was that he loved and despised in cops, he saw it in their squad cars. They had already linked another fire from the same night -- set about two-and-a-half miles away, near RFK Stadium, just 50 minutes before the one on Evarts -- which meant their arsonist had no problem lighting "doubles," as they call a pair of fires set one after another. His attorney at the time he pleaded guilty said in court that his clients mental illness meant he did not have a choice in setting the fires, that he was laboring under a psychological compulsion., Sweatt, who later spoke with the media about the case, gave only brief remarks at his sentencing hearing. He was finally in the company of men who knew his secrets and, in their capacity as fire investigators, perhaps even understood them. Most of the fires had been set near exits. (Fair warning to the man on the street who insults a serial arsonist on camera: It's too bad I don't know where you live, Sweatt told me he thought at such moments, for you'd surly be on the list. Today is Thomas Sweatt's 66th birthday. He would have made up his mind the previous day which cars he'd be torching. Sweatt had boarded in cheap rooms all over town before he settled there in 1992. He found himself walking faster and faster toward home, excited, telling himself he'd see the man at least one more time.But the only way would be thru fire, Sweatt would later write.At home Sweatt stripped off his Roy Rogers uniform and threw on casual clothes. Add to Cart. "He just wanted it over with." He had only just begun to confess to his crimes. Filmography. "We started to figure we needed to go way back," says ATF agent Tom Daley. The mother was nowhere to be found. I regret this fire because it was an elder man reside there. Make a one-time contribution to Alternet All Access, When forensic tests proved their arsonist was behind it, they found the fire deeply troubling. He never explained why. how long to dry biltong in dehydrator; mcdonald's closed toronto Each chip was marked according to alphanumeric code, going in order through the stack. Gulzar Singh, the owner of the liquor store, Syd's Drive-In, says he often arrived to work only to find the smoldering carcasses of automobiles in his parking lot. The idea was to preemptively put damning evidence into the arsonist's hands. "We couldn't figure out where it started," Cheryl said. Some lunatic did it. "He'd been living this separate life for 30 years. KFC was very stressful and I had little time for anything else. ***For more than two decades, the survivors of the fire at Quincy Place never knew that Sweatt was responsible for it. Refresh the page for new events. Sweatt hadn't been considered a suspect in that fire until investigators discovered a news clip about the blaze in his apartment.One of Sweatt's only requests was to meet Blackwell, the task force spokesman who had addressed Sweatt through the media. February 17, 2023. 1.51 3.44 /5. From the wreckage of a Northeast car fire investigators pulled the remnants of a black plastic bag.
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