BALTIMORE (AP) -- A federal jury was selected Tuesday for the trial of the alleged ringleader in a string of arsons at a housing subdivision last December that caused $10 million in damage.
Opening arguments were scheduled for Wednesday in the trial of Patrick Walsh, charged with multiple counts of arson and conspiracy for allegedly helping set fire to more than two dozen homes in the Hunters Brooke development in Indian Head.
Walsh is the first of five suspects to go on trial. Two have pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors have painted Walsh as a person obsessed with fires and explosives who sketched designs of homemade bombs and set earlier fires in a field and parking lot.
Walsh pleaded not guilty earlier this year. His attorney, William Purpura, has denied that Walsh masterminded the fires.
Authorities have identified multiple motives for the arsons, including the possibility that some suspects were angry that many of Hunters Brooke's new residents are black. All five men arrested in the case are white.
Ten homes were destroyed and 16 damaged during the pre-dawn fires Dec. 6. No one was injured and all the homes were unoccupied.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
