Scott Glenn Willett of Gassville appeared during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday and entered a guilty plea to charges that he set his mother’s mobile home on Wildcat Shoals Road ablaze in early September last year.
Willett made his plea to the court meaning a sentencing hearing will be necessary. Judge John Putman set that hearing for March 2nd.
During one interview with investigators, Willett said he set fire to the residence “because God told me to do it”.
There has been an on-going conflict between Willett and his mother. A substantial number of incident reports have been filed by the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office in which Willett has, at various times, allegedly made threats to kill his mother and burn her residence.
Willett was represented by the Public Defender’s Office and his attorneys had asked the court to order that his client be examined to determine if he was mentally capable to proceed in the case filed against him. The exam was completed and since the case is proceeding, it can be inferred that Willett was found fit to proceed.
On the day of the fire, Baxter County Deputies and fire fighters responded to a call at the Wildcat Shoals residence and found it fully engulfed in flames. Willett’s initial story had him arriving at the scene and finding the fire burning and emergency units already there. He at first denied any knowledge of how the fire started.
A neighbor had video surveillance cameras on his property and provided investigators with footage to establish a time line and chain of events related to the fire. The video footage showed Willett leaving the residence just after 11:30 a.m., September 5th, last year and, less than a minute later, smoke could be seen coming from the rear of the mobile home.
When questioned further, Willett allegedly confessed to setting the fire, saying he had thrown a lit torch on his mother’s bed before leaving the residence.
Willett’s mother had taken out orders of protection against her son and then dropped them. In one court filing she said she dropped the effort to obtain a protective order because her son had threatened to kill her and burn down her home unless she did so. Deputies were called to the home at one point and found candles burning and a glass candleholder with smoldering cotton balls in it that was placed in the master bedroom.
During another encounter with Willett, deputies were forced to use a stun gun to subdue him.
Willett’s ex-father-in-law had also filed an order of protection against him after Willett allegedly refused to leave the father-in-law’s house after arriving uninvited in early February last year. In the report of that incident, Willett was told he was not welcome and as he was being escorted out of the residence, he is reported to have hit his ex-father-in-law twice, then gone to his truck, retrieved two machetes, and began chopping at hedges and other objects in the yard.
Willett has been in the Baxter County Detention Center since being arrested on the arson charge September 7th of last year, with bond listed on the jail website at more than $75,000.
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