IL Teen Charged for Torching Mayor's Home

ALORTON, IL -- Authorities have charged a 19-year-old Alorton man with setting a fire at the mayor's home that she narrowly escaped before it destroyed the building.

Yadarius A. Crawford set the fire Dec. 3 to Alorton Mayor JoAnn Reed's home in the 100 block of North 42nd Street knowing that Reed was inside, according to court documents.

Crawford was charged Friday in St. Clair County with one count of aggravated arson and one count of residential arson, both felonies. It was not clear if he and Reed knew one another.

Reed, 60, could not be reached for comment Friday. She told the Post-Dispatch shortly after the fire that she escaped because was awakened by a noise about 1 a.m., about the same time her alarm company called her to tell her the home was on fire.

“As I came through I couldn’t breathe,” she said outside the ruined home that morning. “Every breath hurt until I got outside. As I looked back at the house, fire was billowing out the windows and the front door."

The fire started in the front living room area and spread to the roof. Firefighters spent hours battling the flames before it was extinguished.

The fire destroyed Reed's home, which had been in her family for more than 50 years, as well as her family mementos and pictures. She moved into the home after her father died of cancer in March at age 88.

The Illinois State Fire Marshall investigated the Dec. 3 fire. A spokesperson with the agency could not be reached for comment Friday.

Crawford, of the 4900 block of McCasland Avenue, was being held Friday at St. Clair County Jail with his bail set at $250,000. No defense attorney for Crawford was listed Friday.

He pleaded guilty Sept. 19 for a misdemeanor complaint in Alorton of criminal damage to property worth less than $500 and was ordered to pay restitution, according to St. Clair County court records.

The Dec. 3 fire was the third time a house Reed was living in had caught fire in the last dozen years. Her previous home in the 4200 block of Walnut Avenue caught fire in 2007 and was burned the ground in 2017. There were no arrests in those fires.

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