Firefighter-author sentenced for church arson(To Sleep with the Angels)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-051219arson,1,7582561.story?coll=chi-news-hed

A former firefighter and co-author of a book on the deadly 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School fire was sentenced today to three years in prison after he admitted torching a storage building at a church on Chicago's North Side.

David Cowan, 42, of the 3800 block of North Ravenswood Avenue, pleaded guilty to one count of arson and described himself as "extremely remorseful" during a hearing today before Cook County Judge Dennis Porter.

Cowan was arrested in June and charged with setting fire to a storage building adjacent to St. Benedict Church, 2215 W. Irving Park Rd. Nobody was injured. The defendant will receive 144 days' credit for time already served. Prosecutors had asked for a six-year sentence, while the defense asked for probation.

Defense attorney Thomas Durkin said his client suffered from bipolar disorder and wanted to get the criminal case behind him.

<snip>

The defendant was co-author of "To Sleep With the Angels: The Story of a Fire," considered the authoritative work on the Our Lady of the Angels blaze that killed 92 children and three nuns. He also was the author of "Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City."

Strange - guess he was fascinated with fire and this led him to write the books - but also to be too fascinated! I was in Catholic elementary school in PA at the time of the OLA fire(12/1/1958). I remember that the nuns told us stories about it (scared the bejeebers out of me). And that soon after our old school was required to replace the rickety fire escape with an enclosed fire escape tower.

I read Cowan's book - it was an interesting and scary account of that terrible fire.

[LostinVA]

1. Interesting: many arsonists are firefighters/fire department employees

Why?

[SharonAnn]

3. Why? Because they like fires.

[Sequoia]

2. Stupid firefighter, and he's not the first.

In California a few years ago a fire chief or someone in a high level state job was going up and down the state setting fires. That Topanga fire from like 1991 or '92 was reported to have been set by two idle volunteer firemen who were out of money. Some heroes, eh?