Arrests in Coatesville don't stop fear - or fires

After arson ravaged 15 rowhouses in Coatesville in late January, some residents expressed fears that a vengeful pyromaniac seemed bent on burning down the town.

That fire is among 67 that federal authorities say have been set in Coatesville and the surrounding area since February 2008. Since August, six people have been taken into custody and charged with setting 22 of them.

The suspects include a developmentally challenged teenager, a volunteer firefighter, a homeless man, a teenage runaway, and someone who said he heard voices urging him to set fires. They range in age from 18 to 25.

Even with those arrests, residents such as Linda Edmondson, whose Coatesville home was set ablaze on Feb. 4, 2008, remain wary. "We're definitely not ready to let our guard down," she said last week.

The six young people in custody are accused of setting fires in the summer and winter of 2008 and early 2009.

On Aug. 22, Robert B. Tribbett Jr., 25, was arrested in connection with four fires set that month in Sadsbury Township. One struck the home of a 90-year-old Wallace Alley neighbor, who escaped unhurt.

In Chester County court documents, Tribbett described himself as alcohol-dependent, learning-disabled, and unemployed. A 2002 graduate of the Coatesville school district, he was a volunteer firefighter with the Pomeroy Fire Company, several blocks from his home, and he responded to some of the fires he set, court records said.

When Tribbett was taken into custody at the Somewhere Saloon in Coatesville, he was on probation in Lancaster County, having pleaded guilty to criminal mischief in June 2006, court records said. Now he is awaiting trial on arson charges.

A brief lull in fires lasted until the fall, when more hit the area. Three arrests followed in December.

The first of those was of George Donkewicz, 23, charged on Dec. 9 with setting two fires, one of which killed Irene Kempest, an 83-year-old Nazi work-camp survivor, on Dec. 7.

He told investigators that he heard voices telling him to "set fires and kill people," and he complied, police said.

According to court records, Donkewicz, who did not finish 12th grade and did not have a job, is taking medication for depression.

Prosecutors said that they had linked three more arsons to Donkewicz, who is awaiting trial on homicide and arson charges, but that they would not disclose the locations until the charges had been filed.

On Dec. 15, Leroy R. McWilliams, 23, of Coatesville, was accused of setting five fires. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

In late November, McWilliams was living in a tent and bathing in the Brandywine Creek in Coatesville, according to Anthony Romasco, 36, of Coatesville. Romasco said that he felt sorry for McWilliams - who he said was collecting Social Security benefits - and that he agreed to rent him a room, a decision he soon regretted.

In court documents, McWilliams said he was treated for mental illness at age 19 and attended classes for learning-disabled students in the Coatesville school district. He said he graduated in 2002 but did not have a job.

According to court records, authorities were interviewing McWilliams on Dec. 15 when a 17-year-old youth ran to Coatesville's West End Fire Company to report a garage blaze on nearby South Fifth Avenue. Police said the teenager, whose name is being withheld by The Inquirer because of his age, hours later admitted that he set the fire.

A Chester County Court judge last month directed that the teenager enroll at Abraxas Youth Family Services near Gettysburg, Pa. The facility has a treatment program for juveniles who set fires.

Alan Feldberg, a psychologist at Abraxas, said juvenile fire-setters have usually experienced neglect, estrangement, or abuse. He said they often underperform in school, feel isolated, and can develop a desperate need for attention.

"Kids who develop positive attachments to adults and learn how to regulate their emotions won't set fires," he said.

The boy's father described his son, the youngest of five children, as losing his way.

"He started running away, and when I tried to talk to him, he'd say: 'I know what I'm doing,' " his father recalled in a recent interview.

His father said he tried unsuccessfully to get his son mental-health help. "He had to get in trouble before anyone paid attention," he said.

In January, a renewed spate of fires gripped the town and generated national headlines.

On Feb. 19, police arrested Roger L. Barlow, 19, of Downingtown, linking him to nine Coatesville fires, including the Jan. 24 blaze that gutted most of the 300 block of Fleetwood Street and left more than 50 residents homeless.

Barlow, a student at Universal Technical Institute, an automotive school in Exton, had earlier attended the Devereux School in Downingtown, which addresses special needs, according to relatives and friends. They suggested in interviews that he would not have set fires unless egged on by someone else.

He had also been enrolled for a year and a half at the Center for Arts and Technology, a career and technical high school outside Phoenixville run by the Chester County Intermediate Unit.

There he met Mark Gilliam, a fellow student, in 2007 or 2008, authorities said. Gilliam was taken into custody on Feb. 19 in connection with a fire at a restaurant in Thorndale on Jan. 25.

Police said Barlow at first told them that he and Gilliam "were responsible for numerous additional Coatesville fires," but he later recanted that statement.

After allegedly starting a fire at the Happy Days Family Bistro, police said, Gilliam lingered and offered to help with the cleanup, his criminal complaint said.

At Gilliam's West Bradford Township residence, which he shared with his mother and aunt, police found newspaper articles on the arsons, firefighting equipment, and incendiary materials. Gilliam had applied to the West Bradford Fire Company but was rejected, the company said.

Neighbors said Gilliam was helpful, respectful, and mechanically inclined but in need of adult guidance. They said that Gilliam's father lived out of state, that his mother had married a man with grown children, and that the man had died when Gilliam was in grade school.

Joy Bailey, a former neighbor, said that Gilliam had "a heart of gold" and that he routinely helped others, whether it was fixing something or delivering food.

Bailey said she last saw him about three months ago and became concerned that he had too much free time.

"I feel like they need a stepping stool for kids who are lost like this," she said. "He needs to have his hands busy, his mind busy. . . . He has so much to offer - if it could just be channeled somehow."

Gilliam was held for trial in federal court on Feb. 27.

Even with the six people in custody, the fires have not stopped. Seven school buses were set on fire Feb. 22 at the North Brandywine Middle School, north of Coatesville.