A 39-year-old Hardwick man, recently laid off and facing eviction, set his home on fire in August and collected $6,500 in false insurance claims, according to the Vermont State Police.
Raymond Pickett faces charges of first-degree arson and insurance fraud. He appeared in Caledonia County Court Thursday.
The fire happened Aug. 5 at Pickett’s house on Woodbury Street in Hardwick, troopers said. State police investigated the incident for more than two months before citing Pickett on Wednesday.
Hardwick firefighters arrived at the home at about 6:40 a.m. that August day. Neighbors had called about heavy smoke.
The firefighters forced their way through the padlocked door and found a small fire at the base of the first-floor stairs and another in the basement, state police said.
No one was inside, and firefighters quickly extinguished the flames.
Investigators determined that the blaze began in the basement, on a pile of household objects. The fire spread to the first floor, where other items had been stacked near a floor vent next to the stairwell, investigators said.
In the front lawn, authorities found a jacket with a box of matches inside, troopers said.
Pickett arrived home and told troopers he left that morning with his dog to grab coffee, according to a detective’s affidavit.
Pickett said he had placed an electric heater on top of the washing machine in the basement before he went to bed the previous night. He said he knew it was going to get “wicked cold” and wanted to make sure his basement was warm enough to keep his hot-water heater from running, troopers said.
He said his boss had texted him earlier that morning not to go to work. The jacket in the lawn was his, he told troopers, and the matches were for cigarettes.
Investigators ruled out the heater and other possible origins of the fire. They concluded that it had been started intentionally, with a portable ignition source like a lighter or match.
Several interviews raised investigators’ suspicions.
The boss Pickett had mentioned told troopers that he fired Pickett the week before the fire and hadn’t texted him that morning.
A witness described hearing what sounded like a smoke alarm coming from the house as Pickett left.
The woman who sold Pickett the house in 2015 said she agreed to hold the mortgage, with Pickett paying $300 a month toward it, but that he had started slipping with payments.
She said that about a week before the fire, she had told Pickett he needed to start paying or she would kick him out.
A former roommate told state police that a couple weeks before the fire, Pickett spoke about breaking a water pipe in the basement to collect insurance money.
Investigators found that Pickett had overdue electrical, water and sewer bills, and found that he had filed an insurance claim the day of the fire. As of Wednesday, his insurer had paid him $6,500 total, state police said.
Pickett made inconsistent statements between his initial interview and a second one in September, troopers said. They determined that he had started the fire.
In court Thursday, Judge Mary Miles Teachout released Pickett on an unsecured bond of $1,000.
Pickett’s attorney said his client was now living in a camper.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Hardwick man accused of setting fire in insurance-fraud scheme.