A Franklin woman is facing arson charges in connection with a fire in May in Frenchcreek Township.
Franklin state police said in a criminal complaint that Jacqueline Egger, 59, set fire to an unoccupied house at 246 Stone Road.
The complaint says that on May 31, Polk volunteer firefighters responded to the Stone Road residence and found “the front side of the structure was fully engulfed in flames and smoke was pushing out the upstairs windows,” Polk fire chief Tom Sherman told state police fire marshal Jeffery Cross.
Cross noted that the grass was not burned and no ash was in the vicinity of the burnt chair, meaning the chair was “put there after it had burned in another location,” the complaint said.
Sherman told police the structure was unoccupied and had no functioning utilities, the complaint said.
Egger told police the morning after the fire that she had burned a small child’s chair in a burn pit behind her residence and she believed an ember blew from that fire and ignited the house, according to the complaint.
When told about the burned chair in the grass, Egger said she didn’t know about that chair or how it got there, the complaint said.
Cross concluded it wasn’t possible for a spark or ember to travel 192 feet from Egger’s burn pit and catch the house on fire and that the fire was “an intentional act of arson,” the complaint said.
When police interviewed Egger again in greater detail last week, they noted multiple inconsistencies in her story, the complaint said.
Egger said she was tired of looking at the dilapidated condition of the property, which had once been her grandmother’s home, the complaint said.
Egger was arraigned Tuesday on two felony counts of arson, single felony counts of reckless burning or exploding and criminal mischief-damage property, and a summary count of dangerous burning.
Her preliminary hearing is scheduled Oct. 20 in Central Court.
