Authorities believe a “serial arsonist” may have set a handful of car fires in Johnson dating back to July 2020.
The Lamoille County Sheriff’s Department and the Vermont State Police are investigating the five fires, including one that took place Aug. 15.
Kyle Nuse, a local activist and former member of the Johnson selectboard, said she woke up sometime after midnight to a neighbor banging on her front door. Her 2020 Subaru Ascent was on fire, just a few yards from her house.
Nuse had filled up the gas tank just a few hours earlier.
Nuse and her husband quickly woke their kids and dog and walked them to Nuse’s mother’s house down the street. The flames soon shot up like a “40-foot blowtorch,” she said.
Nobody was hurt, and the fire didn’t damage her house. But the car was destroyed.
Both Nuse and Lamoille County Sheriff Roger Marcoux said there is no evidence Nuse was personally targeted.
“We think we have a serial arsonist, and it’s the same person, and that Kyle was just happening to live in the same area,” Marcoux said.
Marcoux said all five suspected arsons — including four last year, in July, August, September and November — had a few similar characteristics. They all happened between midnight and 4 a.m. Police believe the fires were started with a similar method.
Marcoux said they all happened within a rough quarter-mile of each other.
“It doesn’t seem to be like the individual has a personal agenda, because the majority of the fires are just set on random used cars that are parked on the side of the road for sale,” Marcoux said.
There is a $5,000 reward for information that leads to an arraignment, Marcoux said.
