3 Teens Arrested in Church Fire Ascribed to Vandalism

Three white teenagers were arrested in a fire that destroyed a black church building April 16, but investigators ruled out race or religious bias as a motive Monday.

“They wanted to burn something. The fact that it was a church was not a factor,” said Bill Dunham, agent in charge of the Richmond office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Suspicious fires have hit more than 40 black churches in the South in the last 18 months. Federal authorities have been investigating suspicious fires at a roughly equal number of white churches during the same period.

Arson early Sunday caused an estimated $55,000 damage to a predominantly black church near Maysville, N.C. Investigators found remains of Molotov cocktails and an accelerant at the rural St. James AME Zion Church.

A small fire also was set Sunday at a black church under construction in Greenville, Miss., but police suspected juvenile vandalism.

Investigators also classified the Virginia fire as vandalism, said Capt. James Bourque, head of Chesterfield County’s fire investigation division. “It’s in an out-of-the-way place where teens often congregate,” he said.

Chesterfield Police Chief Carl Baker said a tip led to the arrests of two men and a girl, 16, in the April fire at the First Baptist Church of Centralia’s auxiliary building.

Leigh Tatum Odom, 18, of Richmond and Adam Thomas Sapp, 19, of Midlothian were charged with malicious burning of an unoccupied church and jailed on $25,000 bail. The girl was held as a juvenile. Her name was withheld because of her age.