The man accused in a series of arsons in Stowe told police he had a traumatic brain injury that affects his impulse control and memory, records show, but he said he didn’t know why he had started the string of fires.
Jeffrey Nolan, 62, was charged Wednesday with eight counts of arson. Authorities say he admitted responsibility for eight fires that struck Stowe between March 2019 and last week. Together, they caused more than $1.5 million in damage.
Public records from his court case reveal how investigators narrowed in on the Stowe man and offer some insight into his alleged crime spree.
Last Thursday, first responders arrived at a fire at Stowe Cable Systems, also known as Stowe Cablevision, at about 8:20 a.m. A fire had been set at the rear of the building, behind a heating fan box, but employees had put it out before responders arrived.
The flames had been lit in the same general area as a fire last August at the same building.
When police checked security camera footage at the business, they saw a man walking up Thomas Lane, in front of the cable company building, just before 6 a.m., records show. The man heads to the rear of the building, then goes to the spot of the fire, bends down and ignites something using a long butane lighter.
The man appeared to be wearing a dark hooded jacket, blue jeans and a shiny watch on his left wrist, according to Stowe police.
Local investigators recognized the man in the video as Nolan, who they said is known to walk around the general area of the incident “at all times of night,” according to a police affidavit.
“He has been seen lurking within the parking lot of the Stowe Public Safety Building,” a Stowe detective wrote in an affidavit. “His behavior has been odd and erratic, and he has called in multiple law enforcement complaints over the past several years, usually late at night.”
When Nolan made those calls, the detective wrote, he would sometimes use a code name. The detective wrote that he had received voicemails from Nolan in the middle of the night reporting drug use in the area.
Later last Thursday, a Vermont State Police detective and the Stowe detective met with Nolan at his apartment in town. The detectives told Nolan they knew he often walked around at night and thought he may have seen something suspicious. Nolan deflected questions about the fire and seemed stressed, police said.
The detectives showed Nolan the security camera footage they had seen, and he told them the video was too poor to tell who the man pictured was, records show. Inside the apartment, police noticed a dark blue hooded sweatshirt matching the one the man in the video wore, and they saw that Nolan was wearing blue jeans and a gold watch on his left wrist, just like the man in the video.
Within 10 minutes after the detectives left Nolan’s apartment, police said, the man called a state arson tip line and implicated someone else in the cable company fire.
Investigators returned to Nolan’s apartment Tuesday and told him they knew he was involved with the fires in Stowe, records show. Police said Nolan admitted being the man on video at the cable company last week but denied setting the fire.
As the hourslong interview progressed, police said, Nolan admitted starting both fires at the cable company. He then admitted to starting fires at the Stowe Public Library and a commercial building on South Main Street on March 30, 2019, police said. He also admitted to starting a fire at Stowe Chiropractic on April 18, 2019, and three other fires in 2020, police said, and they arrested him.
On several occasions, police said, Nolan said he was scared after starting the fires and hadn’t expected them to spread as much as they did.
After a fire in June 2020, Nolan said he was at a market in town when someone told him a building had burned down, police said. “He was shocked,” a Stowe detective wrote. “After he paid, he went outside and saw the building and he said oh my god what happened.”
Nolan said he regretted starting the fires, according to police.
Nolan told the investigators that he has a severe drinking problem and often was “very drunk” when he started the fires, records show. He also said he has issues with memory and impulse control as a result of a traumatic brain injury from an incident in 1996, police said.
Nolan appears to be the same man at the center of a state Human Rights Commission case from May 2017. In that case, records show, a Jeff Nolan from Stowe alleged that he was not allowed to bring his service dog, Snoopy, inside Capital Deli, a Montpelier convenience store, in April 2016.
The commission documents describe how in 1996, Nolan was assaulted with a 36-inch metal curtain rod, resulting in a traumatic brain injury.
His injury “affects his ability to orient himself and process thoughts in a logical way,” according to a commission report. “He suffers from an impaired sleeping pattern (and) has occasional blackouts and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Snoopy, the service dog, had been trained to wake Nolan up if he blacked out and help calm and orient him, according to the report.
The commission ultimately sided with Nolan, ruling there were reasonable grounds to believe that the deli owners had discriminated against him.
After his arrest on Tuesday, Nolan was held in Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury before being arraigned Wednesday. He was released Thursday after posting bail, according to the Department of Corrections.
According to court records, as part of Nolan’s proposed conditions of release, he has a curfew between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m., cannot buy or drink alcohol and must stay away from the properties where he is alleged to have set fires.
The proposed release conditions also bar Nolan from possessing any incideniary devices or accelerants.
Stowe Town Manager Charles Safford said Wednesday that the community was relieved that an arrest had been made. He said hoped Nolan can get the help he needs.
