Nov. 28--ETTRICK -- A Petersburg felon with a record of robbery and drug offenses was arrested Wednesday night on charges of setting fire to his former girlfriend's house in Ettrick on Wednesday while her three children were inside. Police said William H. Jones III, 47, entered the rear door of the house in the 20400 block of Ravens-bourne Drive about 9 a.m. Wednesday and threw or poured a flammable liquid inside and ignited it.
The blaze quickly spread, but the children, ages 11, 14 and 17, managed to escape without injury before the fire consumed the rear portion of the ranch-style dwelling, said Chesterfield County fire Lt. Jason Elmore.
The children told authorities they saw Jones -- their mother's former boyfriend who once lived there -- in the backyard after the fire had been set, Elmore said. The mother, who was not identified, was not home at the time of the fire.
Fire crews were called at 9:18 a.m. and brought the blaze under control within 34 minutes. But the smoke and flames badly damaged the house, rendering it uninhabitable. The Red Cross was assisting the family.
The home's rear door was damaged as if someone had broken inside, but investigators later learned that it had been previously damaged, "so it's not determined whether he kicked it open or whether he just pushed it open," said Chesterfield police Lt. David Shand.
"Either way, it will likely end in a burglary charge (against Jones) as well," Shand said. Police had obtained warrants charging him with arson and threats to bomb or damage a building.
Jones was apparently upset that his former girlfriend had recently evicted him from the home, police said.
Chesterfield police announced Wednesday night that Jones was in custody, but provided no details about when or where.
Fire investigators were trying to determine how the fire was started.
"We do believe there was some type of accelerant used," Elmore said. "We don't know whether (the liquid) was in something, like in a bottle," or if it was poured behind the house.
Jones has a criminal record in Petersburg that dates to the late 1980s, according to online court records. He was sentenced in 1997 to one year in jail for possessing with intent to distribute cocaine in 1989, for which he initially received a suspended term.
That suspended sentence was revoked after he was sentenced to serve two five-year prison terms in September 1997 after being convicted of robbing two men a year earlier.
Then in July 2010, Jones was sentenced to 40 years with 37 years suspended for robbing two other men in February of that year, records show. He also was convicted of petty larceny in 2008 and sentenced to a year in jail for that crime.
Copyright 2013 - Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
