Arson case to be sent to grand jury
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By Amanda Stewart
Published: March 19, 2008
When Susan Northrop left her Dumfries area town house on Nov. 28, it was “in great shape,“ she told a judge in Prince William General District Court on Wednesday.
But when she returned, weeks later, the house wa
destroyed.
“It was burnt down to the ground,“ Northrop testified.
Police believe that while Northrop was away in Florida for several weeks in early December, someone broke into and set fire to her house in the 17400 block of Kagera Drive, near Dumfries.
Northrop said no one had her permission to be at the house while she was away.
Seth Mazza, 20, of 13804 Botts Ave. in Woodbridge, is charged with arson in connection with the Dec. 6 fire that destroyed the Kagera Drive house.
Wednesday a judge in Prince William General District Court ruled that there is enough evidence to send the charge to the grand jury, which meets on April 7. If Mazza is indicted, a trial date will then be set in Prince William Circuit Court.
A second man, Jared Donald Neely, 18, of 4 Peaceful Court in Stafford, was charged with statutory burglary.
Prince William County Fire and Rescue workers responded to reports of a fire at the Kagera Drive town house at around 5:49 a.m. Dec. 6, according to a search warrant on file in Prince William Circuit Court.
When they arrived, fire officials found DVDs and compact discs in the house’s yard, leading them to believe that burglary had also occurred, Lt. Mark Dinsmore, with the Prince William County Fire Marshal’s office said in court Wednesday.
Officials also found “several different points of origin” for the fire, which led them to believe that that “this was not an accidental fire,“ Dinsmore said.
Dinsmore said the fire started in at least three different places: in a basement bedroom, in the first floor kitchen and at the foot of the stairs on the first floor.
The three-level town house was destroyed and houses on either side of it sustained about $20,000 in damages, but were still livable after the fire, fire officials said at the time.
Dinsmore said he interviewed Neely and Mazza after the fire.
Mazza told Dinsmore that he did not remember what had happened, Dinsmore said.
“He said he’s an alcoholic and blacks out regularly so he didn’t remember much what happened,“ Dinsmore said in court Wednesday.
Another witness, Casey Estabrook, testified that she and three others were in the house that night. They had been drinking and someone broke a chandelier in the kitchen.
“The whole kitchen was destroyed,“ she said.
She said she heard Mazza say, “The best way to destroy evidence is to burn this bitch down.“
Then she and three others quickly left the house, she said, while Mazza stayed behind.
“We all got frantic and got our things and left,“ Estabrook said.
When they reached a nearby hill, she turned around and saw Mazza closing the back gate of the house and “flames coming out of the middle of the town house,“ she testified in court Wednesday.
Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.
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