Friday, May. 20, 2011
Arson charge results from duplex blaze in Peculiar
Allen Edmonds
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ReprintA 44-year-old Peculiar woman is being held in the Cass County Jail on felony arson charges in connection with a May 6 fire that seriously damaged a two-story duplex near 215th and Peculiar Drive.
Connie Sue Shumate faces a June 30 preliminary hearing on a single count of first-degree arson after allegedly using a cigarette lighter and lighter fluid to set a comforter ablaze in an upstairs bedroom.
According to court documents, Shumate told Peculiar Police Chief Harry Gurin at the scene of the fire that voices had told her to set the fire.
Later, during an interview, she told officers that “the voices” had been telling her for the past week to set a fire and that they stopped once the fire had been set.
She lived in the duplex with her parents, who were the renters, according to a probable cause statement.
A resident of an adjoining apartment told officers that she, her baby and her baby’s father were in their garage when they saw the suspect peek in to their garage and flick a lighter, smiling at them, before going into the yard and sitting down on the grass.
The neighbor said she went into her own apartment and smelled smoke before observing the fire in the next apartment.
According to the statement, Shumate told officers she had been released from prison six months earlier after serving a five-year term in a previous arson case.
That charge originated in 2005 in Plattsburg, according to state court records.
She is being held in lieu of $25,000 bond.
