Four minutes before a blaze was reported that would gut a Mount Pleasant apartment complex in March, security cameras recorded a homeless man who had been banned from the property leaving the scene, according to court records.
The man, who has a long history of mental illness, was charged with unlawful entry.
But the intense nature of the fire consumed any physical evidence that might have been gathered, leaving arson task force officials frustrated in their efforts to close the case.
Officials have not been able to determine the cause of the five-alarm blaze that destroyed the four-story Winston Apartments — 3145 Mount Pleasant St. — NW, and left nearly 200 people homeless.
The fire began before midnight March 12 and lasted well into the morning, gutting the 85 apartment units and collapsing the roof of the Meridian Hill Baptist Church next door.
Early in the investigation, the D.C. Arson Task Force investigators were looking at a 47-year-old homeless man who had been ordered by the courts to stay away from the building after numerous encounters with management, according to government sources and court documents.
But little physical evidence remained in the ruins.
“There are fires that happen that go unsolved because the evidence is completely destroyed,” said D.C. fire department spokesman Alan Etter. “I don’t want to say this is one of them because it remains under investigation.”
The man was captured on security cameras leaving the building’s basement shortly before midnight, according to the March 15 police arrest affidavit.
“Four minutes later, a fire was reported in the basement area,” the report said.
Property managers identified the man as a suspect who had been arrested numerous times in the last year, court records show. The man had been sleeping and urinating in the hallways and was ordered to stay away from the building.
Arson investigators arrested the man on unlawful-entry charges. He was arrested and taken to Southeast Community Hospital lock ward for health reasons.
The man, whom The Examiner has chosen not to name because he has not been charged with arson, was released two weeks later.
Hospital officials determined his condition was poor and not likely to improve. The man suffered heart failure, chronic liver disease, schizophrenia and eroded mental capacity, according to a letter from the hospital’s medical director.
His attorney Betty Ballester said she could not comment but the man was in very poor health.
