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...
