Posted on 03/08/2006 11:03:17 AM PST by presidio9
Two college students arrested Wednesday in a string of nine rural Alabama church arsons told authorities that the first fires were set as “a joke” and later blazes were intended as a diversion, federal agents said.
A third college student was arrested later Wednesday in the serial arsons, according to WVTM-TV of Birmingham.
Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk Jr., both students at Birmingham-Southern College, appeared in federal court Wednesday and were ordered held on church arson charges pending a hearing Friday.
Matthew Lee Cloyd, reportedly a student at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, was arrested midday, the WVTM reported.
An ATF affidavit said Moseley told agents on Wednesday that he, Cloyd and Debusk went to Bibb County in Cloyd’s Toyota sport utility vehicle on Feb. 2 and set fire to five churches. A witness quoted Cloyd as saying Moseley did it “as a joke and it got out of hand,” according to the affidavit.
Moseley also told agents the four church fires in west Alabama were set “as a diversion to throw investigators off,” an attempt that “obviously did not work,” the affidavit said.
Arson investigators scheduled an afternoon news conference at the Tuscaloosa airport to discuss the arrests.
The first two suspects were arrested Tuesday night, NBC’s Pete Williams reported.
WVTM-TV, citing the state fire marshal’s office, said the two are students at Birmingham Southern College and were arrested at a college dorm.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives made the Alabama church arson case a top priority as scores of agents joined state and local law officers in the probe.
Authorities analyzed tire tracks and traced the purchase of the tires to
-snip-
A federal source said the apparent motive was that the three students just liked to set and watch fires.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
AP/NYT provided this excerpt from one of the perp's personal pages on Facebook.com:
In the area on Mr. Moseley's page where visitors can post messages, alongside more than 12 expressing shock at the arrests and promising to pray for the accused, was one that Mr. Cloyd posted on Jan. 9. It read:
"To my dearest friend Moseley:
"The nights have grown long and the interstates of Alabama drunk driverless, the state troopers bored, the county sheriffs less weary, and the deer of Bibb County fearless. 2006 is here, it is time to reconvene the season of evil! Only one problem stands in our way. I got a new cellphone for Christmas and I no longer have your number, so send it to me and evil shall once again come to pass!
"May our girlfriends be concerned about our safety, may our parents be clueless, may our beers be frosty, may our love lives be fruitful, may our weed be green as the freshly mowed grass!
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/national/09arson.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5094&en=454a9c72d457af49&hp&ex=1141966800&partner=homepage
Sounds like these are just way messed up kids, whose parents weren't paying attention to the worthless punks they'd raised. It's a symptom of what's wrong with our educational system, that all three of these losers were college "students". They should have been put to work in a factory when they were 14. Instead, they're having an extended adolescence funded by their parents and taxpayers, who require virtually nothing in the way of work and responsibility from them, and they finally got bored with little kid mischief and moved on to bigger stuff.
Two reasons:
1) Churches are reliably vacant and lacking security much of the time.
2) Same reason stupid punks like to spray paint swastikas on synagogues. They know it'll get a much bigger rise out of people than just vandalizing some random home or business, and get their very own stunt on the national news.
On another article it was said that two of the students (aspiring actors) were in a documentary. It might be educational to know what kind of documentary and what was the subject matter.
The "joke" excuse is a transparent lie.
Was that the chruch that Clinton remembers burning to the ground when he was a child?
I don't think so - Hate crimes are reserved for crimes against everyone BUT Christians.
Hate crimes are reserved for crimes against everyone BUT White christians.
One other article mentioned these aspiring actors starred (or whatever) in a documentary. Freepers need to find out the name of the documentary and its subject and what part these fools (worse than fools) played.
I had the same suspicions as you. Theater majors. If anyone finds anything about this documentary, please ping me.
An electioneering myth as far as anyone can tell.
It's not important whether it's true or not, but how he FELT about it!
Well this has certainly prompted a firestorm of media attention, no pun intended. You can't turn anywhere without hearing about this...oh wait, I've only heard about the capture of the criminals here on FR.
At least they weren't burning gay churches, 'cause that really would cause a ruckus.
That was my initial suspicion when I heard the student/theater connection on the news this morning.
What kind of college students would think it a "joke" to burn down Baptist Churches besides a bunch of sick and weird gay activists???
This is definitely an anti-Christian hate-crime, but I doubt if we'll hear this angle reported on the MSM.
Hate crimes cannot be commited against Christians. Unless they're racial minorities usually, but apparently religion trumps race here, since some of the churches had many black members.
Disgusting.
I really hope the truth of why these subhumans did this comes out.
"Moseley's father is a Constable in Jefferson County, AL. I imagine he's not amused at his son's "joke."
One of the other kid's father is a doctor. I imagine he's not real thrilled either.
http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/114189952637050.xml&coll=2
Last paragraph.
In 1996, the federal Church Arson Prevention Act — which prohibits anyone from intentionally defacing, damaging or destroying religious property — was signed into law. In 2001, Jay Scott Ballinger, an Indiana man who called himself a missionary of Lucifer, was sentenced to life in prison after burning 26 churches in eight states, including Alabama, over a five-year period that ended in 1999.A Clinton program with Rubin and Reno at the helm initially, it seems. Personally, I'd expect Janet to be burning the churches but apparently the law focuses on the burning of religious properties that don't have women and small children in them. So Waco Janet wouldn't have much fun with that after all.
Read it, thanks for the link. I don't like the whole idea of "hate crimes" but since there is such a category, this fits the definition.
aka.. .a LIE.
I suspect that were the perpetrators' motives examined, they burned the Baptist churches because of their hatred of evangelical Christianity. They may possibly be homosexuals or under the influence of the Satanic aspects of the "Goth" culture. The fact that they may have some past affiliation with a Christian church or attend a Methodist college is meaningless if they were homosexuals or Satanists.
It is characteristic of government officials and their media allies to downplay a threat from "protected" classes. For example, anyone who verbalizes a fear of young black males is branded a racist. Black on white crimes exceeds the reverse by a huge margin, yet their crimes are rarely branded or prosecuted as "hate crimes." The recent attempt on the part of a Muslim to run down students at a North Carolina college was quickly hushed by the MSM even as they bilovate 24/7 about the "torture" inflicted on Muslim terrorists by GIs at various installations. Rest assured that had some Klansmen burned 10 black churches in Alabama (or even Pennsylvania), every resource of the Federal government would have been used to catch the perpetrators. When arrested, the MSM would spew forth endless diatribes about lingering racism in America, EEEEEEvil white males, etc.
Since the alleged felons are "fun loving students" and, of course, not homosexuals or Satanists, this story will fall off the national radar quickly.
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