Judge orders man detained in Austin fire that killed 4, including 5-year-old and newspaper editor

Yahoo

14 hours ago

With his features hidden by a mask and a black thermal shirt, prosecutors said Lontray Clark ignited a fire in a building with 13 apartments, then returned to his car and banged his hand on the center console.
'(I) lit they house on fire,' Clark told his cousin, according to prosecutors.
The building soon became engulfed in flames, prosecutors said, ultimately killing four people, including a 5-year-old boy and a well-known editor for a West Side news publication group.
'Special' longtime editor of The Austin Voice among 4 killed in suspicious West Side fire
Cook County Judge Shauna Boliker on Saturday ordered Clark, 23, detained while his case is pending, calling the alleged act a 'brazen disregard for life.' He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, four counts of aggravated arson, two counts of attempted murder and one count of residential arson in connection with the early-morning fire on June 26 in the 5200 block of West North Avenue.
'A 5-year-old … will never have a chance to grow up,' Boliker said.
During a detention hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, Assistant State's Attorney Sheri Bennet said Clark planned the attack after seeing a social media post that indicated his former girlfriend was now seeing one of his friends. The two managed to escape their apartment, prosecutors said, but the fire spread throughout the building.
Among those killed was Brad Cummings, 76, longtime editor of the Voice Newspapers, which publishes The Austin Voice and its sister publication, The Garfield-Lawndale Voice. Since its founding in 1985, The Austin Voice has been a source of local news on the West Side.
Court records and other published reports identified the other three victims as Gina Brown Henry, 32; her son, Jayceon, 5; and her sister, Destiny Henry, 27.
Two others were injured, including a 4-year-old boy who remains hospitalized. The boy is intubated, suffering from head trauma and burns to the face and body.
'The horrific crime was concocted by this defendant in very short order,' Boliker said.
According to Bennet, Clark's former girlfriend posted a selfie inside the apartment of one of Clark's friends before the couple went to bed around midnight.
Around 12:30 a.m., Clark picked up his cousin, who prosecutors identified as a witness, and drove to a gas station where he filled a container with gas. The two then drove to a store, Bennet said, where Clark bought the mask and the thermal long-sleeve shirt.
Clark was then captured by surveillance video parking in an alley near the building and walking toward it with the container of gas, prosecutors said.
Around 1:23 a.m., Bennet said, Clark ran back to his car where his cousin waited and jumped into the driver's seat. They then drove to his grandfather's house, where Clark stripped off his clothes, threw them in a trash bin and took a shower, authorities said.
Clark was arrested on Thursday in Springfield.
Clark's public defender argued to the judge that prosecutors could not put Clark directly at the scene of the apartment, while also noting that he has ties to the community with his infant child.
Boliker, though, in ordering detention, said there is 'no question' that Clark poses a danger to the public.
Community members and local officials said Cummings was well known in the Austin area, a frequent fixture at community events.
'He was a curmudgeon in a good way,' Len Tomasello, a columnist for the Voice Newspapers, told the Tribune after the fire. 'To him, there was only one thing — getting the paper out each week. That's what he lived and breathed for.'
Clark previously was convicted in Sangamon County of illegally possessing a gun and faced two pending misdemeanors in Winnebago County.
He is scheduled to return to court on Monday.