A transgender man and activist in Jackson, Mich., is suspected of burning down the home he lived in to bring more attention to gay rights.
The fire killed five pets and the FBI investigated it as a hate crime, according to the Detroit News.
Law enforcement later arrested Nikki Joly, accusing him of setting fire to the house. Traces of gasoline were found in several rooms in the home.
In the months before the house went up in flames, Joly helped open the city’s first gay community center, planned a pride parade, and helped push through a nondiscrimination ordnance. He was named citizen of the year by a local paper.
Two of Joly’s colleagues told police that he had been frustrated that the pride parade did not receive more recognition and that the attention on gay rights was loosing steam after the passage of the nondiscrimination law.
One of the colleagues later denied to the news outlet that she told police “anything like that.”
Joly’s attorney denies he was looking for more attention.
Joly told police on the morning of the fire he bought fuel at a gas station to mow the lawn. When it became too hot to mow, he went into work and later got a call from his girlfriend that she had forgotten her lunch. Joly went home to get her lunch, and minutes after he left, the home was on fire.
“The timeline shows a window of less than five minutes for another person to enter the residence, splash gasoline around, ignite the fire and then leave without being scene [sic],” police detective Aaron Grove wrote in the police report.
A hearing on the case has been scheduled for March 8.
The case is developing soon after an actor on the show “Empire,” Jussie Smollett, is being accused of staging a hate crime against himself. Smollett is suspected of hiring two of his friends to attack him and put a rope around his neck.
