Suspect Arrested in 2-Year Arson Spree Around D.C.

A man suspected of setting fires to 46 houses and apartments in the Washington area was arrested Wednesday, ending a two-year campaign of terror that left an elderly woman dead and put many communities on edge in the hours before dawn, authorities said.

Thomas A. Sweatt, who helped manage a fast-food restaurant near half a dozen of the fires, was arrested about 9 a.m. in Prince George’s County, Md., after leaving a work-related meeting in District Heights, authorities said.

He lived in an apartment in southeast Washington that was near several of the fires, they said.

Law enforcement officials said they tied Sweatt to the crimes through DNA taken from items found at several crime scenes, including cloth from a pair of pants left near a house fire in Arlington, Va., in December and a sock that apparently was used as a wick in a September house fire in northeast Washington.

Under questioning Wednesday, Sweatt, 50, implicated himself in the fires, investigators said. No motive has emerged, although one law enforcement official said Sweatt spoke of demons and voices.

Prosecutors charged Sweatt with 11 federal offenses stemming from four fires and an attempted arson in Maryland and Washington. He was ordered held without bond after appearing in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md. A follow-up hearing was scheduled for Friday.