Arson

A 39-year-old Camden woman with a long history of violent outbursts fatally stabbed her boyfriend Monday night hours after he obtained a court order to keep her away from him, authorities said. Denise Hall, of the 3600 block of Westfield Avenue in East Camden, was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge yesterday morning and returned to the Camden County Jail when she was unable to post $250,000 cash bail. Camden County Prosecutor Lee A. Solomon said Hall stabbed Otis Singleton, 51, multiple times at the apartment they shared.

Firefighters took six minutes yesterday morning to douse this blaze in a vacant building on Stella Street near Germantown Avenue. No one was injured. Arson is suspected.

Arson is suspected in a minor fire at the Devereaux School's Berwyn campus on Jan. 25, Easttown police said. Police said a rolled-up blanket was ignited against a mattress in a girls' bathroom in the northeast corner of the gymnasium. The gymnasium previously had housed students who were displaced by a multi- alarm fire Jan. 10 that destroyed the second and third floors of a Devereaux dormitory on Waterloo Road in Devon. Leonard Green, the operations manager for the school, said that the fire damage Jan. 25 was minimal and that classes in the building resumed almost immediately after the fire had been extinguished.

Arson was the cause of a fatal hotel fire in Center City last month that killed one man and sent dozens fleeing for safety, the fire marshall's office ruled yesterday. Al Dreisbach, a middle-aged man from Millville, N.J., died in the four- alarm blaze at the Milner Hotel, on 10th Street between Chestnut and Sansom. Eleven people - nine of them firefighters - suffered minor injuries during the July 1 blaze. The ruling of arson makes Dreisbach's death a homicide, said Lt. Renald Pelszynski, a fire marshal.

An Oxford Circle man was charged yesterday with causing a $1 million carpet-store fire in December and will be charged in connection with two other fires - a minor blaze at a synagogue last summer and a major apartment-complex fire that routed 400 people, police said. Police said Anthony Yang, 20, of the 6000 block of Large Street, was charged with the two-alarm fire Dec. 26 at Spectrum Carpets, 6000 Castor Ave., which caused $1 million in damage to the store and its contents. During questioning after his arrest yesterday, police said, Yang allegedly admitted to setting two other fires in the area.

For the third time in six weeks, an arson fire broke out yesterday at Cookman United Methodist Church in North Philadelphia. There were no injuries and only minor damage. The fire at the predominantly African American church began in a plastic trash can at the bottom of the basement stairs. It was discovered shortly before 8 a.m. by a woman who smelled smoke when she opened the building to do some cleaning. The fire had been out for some time by then, investigators said. Damage was confined to the floor around the can and to the ceiling, which was darkened by smoke.

A South Philadelphia man was arrested on arson and assault charges yesterday in connection with an early-morning house fire that injured four people, two critically. Investigators said the blaze started in the entryway of a two-story rowhouse on 26th Street near Ellsworth shortly before 3:30 a.m., and quickly spread to the first floor and part of the second floor. Firefighters found Marty Bell, 76, and Phillip Moore, 30, on the second floor of the house, investigators said.

Police say that arson caused a Saturday-night blaze that destroyed a business, and that they are looking for suspects who may have burglarized three buildings before setting the fire. Police Chief Robert H. Thompson said yesterday one or two suspects cut a six-foot barbed-wire fence to enter the complex at Calcon Hook and Hook Roads about 10 p.m. He said Power Motive Rebuilders, which occupied the building destroyed by the fire, was burglarized, along with Action Supply Co. and T&C Construction Co., which suffered minor fire damage.

Arson is suspected in an early-morning blaze that ripped through a block of rowhouses yesterday in Camden, leaving seven families homeless, fire officials said. Camden County Fire Inspector Richard Johnson said the three-alarm fire appeared to have begun in an abandoned house about 5:45 a.m. and quickly spread to the other homes through a common attic. Nine two-story houses on Royden Street near 5th, seven of them occupied, were damaged, but no one was reported seriously injured, Johnson said.

A former Horsham volunteer firefighter, who admitted setting fires because he liked the camaraderie among the firefighters who battled them, has been sentenced to a 23 1/2-month-to-10-year term in Montgomery County Prison. Anthony M. McDonald, 24, who has been imprisoned since his arrest nearly a year ago, was sentenced last Thursday by Montgomery County Judge Albert Subers after pleading guilty to charges of arson, criminal mischief and causing or risking a catastrophe. Before his arrest, McDonald, formerly of the first block of Lower State Road, had won praise for his volunteer work.

The unsolved arson that has shut down Penn Wood High School evidently has become a source of growing anxiety in the Delaware County district. "The frustration is not being able to have anyone identified at this point," said Joseph Bruni, superintendent of the William Penn School District. "That's creating enormous emotional stress here in the district, especially in the high school. " Bruni himself has kicked in $1,000 toward what now is a $15,000 reward for information in the investigation.

A bomb scare was phoned in Friday to the same Delaware County school district where an arson - preceded by a series of bomb scares - recently damaged the high school. Police received a call just after 9 a.m. telling them that the Cypress Street campus of William Penn High School would be blown up, according to Yeadon Police Chief Donald Molineux. Students were evacuated and bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in to search the building, he said. Afternoon classes were canceled. The school is operating on a split session for the roughly 1,400 students displaced after the Green Street campus was set on fire last week.

AN ELDERLY MAN found dead inside his burning home yesterday morning in Southwest Philadelphia had been shot to death, police said. Authorities are investigating Grover Edwards' death as a murder and arson, said Officer Christine O'Brien, a police spokeswoman. Edwards, 74, appeared to have been shot in the head, O'Brien said. Investigators had not found a motive or suspects yesterday. The blaze was reported at 7:30 a.m. in Edwards' rowhouse on Springfield Avenue near 59th Street, said Lt. Bernard Gilliam, a Fire Department spokesman.

Friday was going to be a big day for the seniors of Penn Wood High School, the day they would get to buy prom tickets. "All of us have been talking about prom since January," Sabreen Abbass, 17, said. "All of us had our passes to come down and buy our prom tickets. We all had our dresses. " Instead, she had a day off she didn't want. She and her friends will get to buy their prom tickets eventually, but they don't know when or where. A blaze early Thursday that officials have declared arson has barred them from their Lansdowne school, its walls charred and windows boarded.

Arson is suspected in a 3-alarm fire that heavily damaged the Penn Wood High School in Lansdowne overnight and may force it to remain closed for the rest of the academic year, authorities said. The blaze followed a series of bomb threats at the school that stopped about two weeks ago, said Fire Chief Daniel Kortan. Noting a back door had been punched in overnight and that fire burned in multiple locations, Kortan declared the blaze suspicious and local, county and state fire marshals were called in to investigate.

A Montgomery County man has been arrested and charged with arson in a fire that destroyed a woman's car in Lansdale. Jordan Fiscus, 25, of Lansdale, was caught on a surveillance video carrying a bottle of lighter fluid toward a car that then caught fire around 3 a.m. on March 28, police said. The car belonged to a 23-year-old woman who was not identified by police. Two passers by who saw the fire were checking to see if anyone was inside the car when an secondary explosion occurred.

Another arson hit the new residential high-rise nearing completion at Temple University, a university spokesman reported Friday. The small fire was discovered about 1:15 p.m. Wednesday at Morgan Hall, Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, said Ray Betzner, the spokesman. Construction crews extinguished the fire, and the scene was investigated by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A series of fires was set in the building's upper floors in February, causing $100,000 in damage.

Authorities are offering a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for $100,000 in damage caused by arsons at a Temple University building under construction. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is offering up to $5,000 in connection with arsons that occurred Monday and Tuesday on multiple floors of a dormitory being built at 1601 N. Broad St. L.F. Driscoll Co. is offering an additional reward of up to $10,000. On Monday, there were fires on the 15th floor around 8:30 a.m., on the 20th floor around 10:30 a.m., and on the 18th floor around 11 a.m. On Tuesday, there were fires on the 13th floor around 10:30 a.m. and on the 16th floor around 2:30 p.m. Anyone with information can call 1-888-ATF-FIRE or send an e-mail to ATFTips@atf.gov . - Robert Moran

Federal arson investigators said a series of fires Monday and Tuesday at a Temple University construction site were set, causing about $100,000 in property damage. Fires were set on three occasions Monday and two occasions Tuesday at the Morgan Hall student-housing construction site at Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Temple police said the fires involved construction debris and were not serious. The university said the scheduled fall dormitory opening is still on track.

Police responding to a report of a disturbance found the body of a Norristown teenager inside a Chester County apartment that was on fire, officials said. The victim was identified as Kevin Allen, 17, who was staying at his father's unit in the Hanover Garden Apartments on East Schuylkill Road in North Coventry Township. The death was ruled a homicide, said District Attorney Thomas P. Hogan. State police, Philadelphia, and Chester County arson teams are investigating, he said. Hogan said that blood was found in the stairwell leading to the unit and that investigators were awaiting results of the autopsy and arson investigation.