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Bonners Ferry man facing 10 years for arson |
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September 27, 2017 |
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| Facebook photo |
A 32-year-old Bonners Ferry man told a
deputy he was homeless as he confessed to
lighting a shed he said he'd been staying in in
Moyie Springs on fire Saturday morning. He is
now facing up to
10 years in prison after being charged with
third degree arson.
Deputy Clint Randall responded to a report of a
shed on fire on property owned by Jimmy Ball at
5:33 a.m. Saturday. At 5:39 a.m., the person who
reported the fire called in to say the person
who lit the fire had red hair.
When he arrived at the scene, Randall wrote, he
walked back to the fire, in a storage shed
behind the residence at 16 Lucky Lane, and a man
approached him and confessed that he's started
the fire.
"He repeated this several times, turned around,
and put his hands behind his back, wanting me to
arrest him," Randall wrote in his report. "I
told him to relax and asked him what happened."
The man, later identified as Jon Ratcliff, told
Randall he was homeless, though he does have an
address listed in Bonners Ferry, and had decided
to sleep in the shed of the unoccupied home.
"He was very cold and started a fire in a pan
using a bag of wood chips that was in the shed,"
Randall wrote. "Ratcliff was unclear what
happened next."
He started off by telling Randall that he had
started the fire as a sacrifice to his family
because they needed warmth, then said his family
lived elsewhere in the county. Often distraught
and crying openly, Ratcliff next said the fire
was part of a movie he had recently watched, and
that he thought that his lighting the fire was
part of that movie.
Ratcliff told Randall, of his own volition, that
he had no history of mental illness, nor had he,
he said, used drugs or alcohol in more than a
week.
After detaining Ratcliff, in handcuffs, in
his patrol car, Randall spoke with Jason Moore,
who had reported the fire.
Randall then took Ratcliff into custody, charging him
with second-degree arson, which, under
Idaho Code, is applicable when a structure is
burned and carries a maximum penalty of 15 years
in prison and a $75,000 fine.
After reviewing the case, Prosecutor Jack
Douglas opted to reduce the charge to third
degree arson, still a felony, but applicable for
burning real or personal property and carrying a
maximum penalty, if convicted, of 10 years in
prison and a $50,000 fine.
Ratcliff, who as of this posting remains
incarcerated in the Boundary County Jail on
$5,000 bond, is scheduled to appear in court for
a preliminary hearing before Judge Justin Julian
at 1:30 p.m. Friday, October 6. |
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