Sept. 11--After flames consumed his girlfriend's Jeep, Troy Ladd stood outside his New Smyrna Beach-area home and told deputies: "You might as well go ahead and arrest me."
Ladd, 49, remained behind bars Tuesday after he was accused of torching the Jeep, burning his belongings outside and soaking the Mallonee Road house the couple shared in gasoline as his girlfriend slept.
The 46-year-old woman told Volusia County deputy sheriffs that she woke up late Sunday because of a "popping noise," a sound from her burning Jeep.
"She left the bedroom and saw Ladd with a gas can," Brandon Haught, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, said in a report. "He was pouring gasoline on the living room couch and then walked into other rooms, pouring gasoline as he went."
When the woman ran outside, she saw her Jeep in flames. She asked neighbors who were drawn outside by the commotion to call 911.
Firefighters from Volusia County Fire Services and the New Smyrna Beach Fire Department, as well as Volusia deputies, quickly responded to the call.
They found Ladd standing in the street in front of the house. That's when he said he had burned his belongings, and he invited deputies to arrest him.
Ladd was charged with attempted murder, arson to a structure normally occupied and damage to a structure due to arson.
"At no time during the incident did Ladd try to wake his girlfriend up or warn her in any way about the fire," Haught's report said.
The woman, whose name wasn't immediately available, told investigators she and Ladd have been having relationship problems but they had not been fighting recently.
Sunday's trouble started about 10 p.m., when the woman said she found Ladd in their backyard burning his belongings, including his clothes, television and a video-game system.
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