Arson fire guts Jackson building; man arrested

An Oak Ridge man was arrested early Saturday on a charge of arson stemming from a late Friday night fire that gutted a Jackson apartment building and left six tenants homeless.

The six tenants and two visitors in the building at 502 N. Hope St. escaped by jumping out of second-floor windows as flames raced up the stairs, blocking the only door to the outside. Thick smoke clouded the two second-story apartments where three couples lived.

"I lost everything," a sobbing Nichole Smith, 22, said Saturday afternoon as she and other tenants tried to salvage a few belongings from the blackened rooms and as workmen boarded up the windows. Her cat died in the blaze.

Nicholas Moore, 23, was arrested about 4 a.m. Saturday at his Oak Ridge home. He was being held in the Cape Girardeau County Jail in Jackson on $75,000 bond.

Moore is charged with first-degree arson. If convicted, he could receive five to 15 years in prison.

Jackson police said Moore, who is unemployed, started the fire following a dispute with one of the tenants. Police said they weren't clear about what led to the dispute. Tenants said Moore and another man they knew had showed up uninvited and they had asked them to leave.

Tenants said Moore was drunk when he showed up at the apartment building on the residential street.

Moore and his companion drove off together, tenants said. The other man was later questioned by police but wasn't charged.

"At this point, we only have proof that one person was involved in starting the fire," Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said.

Lt. James Humphreys, a detective with the Jackson Police Department, said Moore apparently set fire to a pillow on a couch in a hallway on the unoccupied first floor of the 52-year-old building owned by Rosalie Moeller of Jackson.

"There was a huge explosion and fire just climbed up the stairs," said Cassie Webb, 32. Her boyfriend, James Ruble Jr., said the blast blew open the couple's apartment door and sent them fleeing for their lives.

But investigator Butch Amann of the state fire marshal's office said there was no evidence of an explosion.

"I think the explosion they heard was when the glass broke out of the front door," he said.

Matt Buchheit, 18, shared an apartment with his girlfriend and another couple.

"The smoke was so thick it was hard to breathe," he said.

Buchheit said the occupants had only minutes to escape the fire.

Amann said the blaze could have been deadly if the tenants had been sleeping when the fire was set.

Fire investigators reported seeing one smoke alarm in the apartment building but were not certain if it was functional.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123