GREENBELT, Md. – A security guard accused of burning down homes at the suburban Washington housing development where he worked told investigators he was upset his employer did not show enough sympathy after his infant son died this year.
Aaron L. Speed, 21, who worked for Security Services of America, told police he left his job from August to October because of SSA’s “indifference to the death of his infant son,” according to court papers released Friday.
When asked by investigators who might have started the fire, Speed said: “Someone who works at the site and recently experienced a great loss.”
A relative said Speed lost an infant son earlier this year.
Speed had been hired to protect the Hunters Brooke development, where a string of fires Dec. 6 destroyed 10 houses and damaged 16 others. Authorities said it was the biggest residential arson case in Maryland history, with damage put at $10 million. No one was hurt in the fires; many of the houses were under construction.
Speed was arrested Thursday on arson charges and was to appear before a federal magistrate Friday afternoon. He failed a polygraph test that included a question as to whether he started the fires, court papers said.
Speed told WUSA-TV outside his parents’ home Thursday that police have the wrong man: “Everything that I’m doing, I’m doing willingly to prove to them that I am innocent.”
Authorities searched the home of Speed’s parents on Wednesday night and towed a car away, said David Jaillet, whose stepdaughter is Speed’s wife.
Jaillet said the couple married about a year ago and had twin boys earlier this year, but one of the boys died of intestinal complications.
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