A man charged with setting fire to the house in which he was living causing significant damage to the structure and the death of another person’s pet cat appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday and entered a not guilty plea to his charges.
Thirty-four-year-old Bradley Hanes is charged with arson, cruelty to animals and first-degree criminal mischief.
On December 30 last year, 911 dispatch received a call reporting that a fire had broken out in a house along Kingswood Drive.
When the first firefighter arrived, he reported seeing Hanes in the garage of the burning home yelling that there were cats in the residence.
Hanes had to be pulled back from the burning house several times. He was taken to Baxter Health as a precautionary measure and was reported to have made comments about self-harm while in the emergency room.
The person whose name was on the lease told investigators Hanes had rented a single room from him since October 2023. He reported Hanes had lost his job and was going to have issues paying the agreed rent.
After an argument, the man left Hanes a note telling him to vacate the room by December 31. The argument had been touched off when Hanes ignored a request to “clean up his mess” in the common areas of the house.
The man said he left the note when he went out of town December 29. The next day he said he had gotten a call that the residence was on fire.
He said he called 911 after being told about the fire and said he suspected Hanes of starting it because of the disagreement they were having.
On an after-fire walkthrough, investigators found items that indicated the fire had been deliberately set.
There were toilet paper streamers and matches in the victim’s bedroom and in other locations. A lamp was plugged into an outlet through toilet paper.
A vulgar message was put on a wall by the victim’s bed and one written in cat feces was found in a closet behind the victim’s clothes.
During post fire cleanup, the victim found a white plastic bag in a trash can in the bedroom Hanes had occupied. The bag contained the dead body of the victim’s cat that he called “Crazy Girl.”
As the clean-up continued, the victim found a second cat stuffed in a clothes dryer but alive.
A Mountain Home police investigator spoke to Hanes at Baxter Health. It was reported that Hanes admitted torturing and murdering the cat because he was upset about the way the victim had spoken to him about getting the house cleaned up.
When the investigator began asking questions about the fire, however, Hanes is reported to have asked for a lawyer.
The victim said he lost all his property in the fire and estimated the value at between $35,000 and $40,000. He told investigators he did not have renter’s insurance.
The owners of the house said they did have insurance and were waiting for an adjuster to make an estimate of the loss.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI