Arson also called " Jewish Lightning " as a slur against Jewish Business owners who would arrange to have their Business burn to collect the insurance.
Call it what you will but it is a Serious Felony Criminal Offense .
Which Costs insurance company's millions ,costs hundreds of innocent lives and ultimately takes money out of the pocket of everyone who pays insurance premiums.
Pittsburgh has had the reputation for being the Arson Capital of the world more than once over the years just the shear number of fires which happen in this region is mind boggling. I can ride around Ohio and West Virginia with the Fire Scanner on not hear one fire call yet as soon as I cross into Western Pa the scanner is non stop with 3 or more fires going at once some days
Over the years many arsonists have been caught but still the successful prosecution of arson fires is dreadfully low.
Some arsonists where home brew others like Merrill "Morrie " Klein have been brought in from out of state to do jobs.
One arsonist from Cleveland use to bring a newspaper from Cleveland with him and set fires and was eventually caught by way he set fires with his Cleveland Newspaper.He was finally caught in the 80's after setting a string of fires in the Mexican War Streets area of Pittsburgh where people where buying the old houses start doing repairs and dummy everything up then arrange to have them burn and collect on the insurance.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19770212&id=2nIqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IFcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3164,3091134
One story I heard about Morrie but have not been able to confirm is he destroyed a factory in Butler County by taking the water out of the sprinkler system and replacing it with gasoline then turning the water on behind the gasoline. He then started a fire and sprinklers went off spread the fire even further and then when water did finally come out of pipe it was too late. Morrie is a very old man now almost 90 if he still is around the area which I doubt as he was more than likely given a new identity and town to live in for being a stool pigeon .
How many fires he actually committed we will never know unless he comes out with a book which I am surprised he never did.
When it came to investigating fires years back it was often thru the use of junk science and unproved theory's and arsonists defense attorneys where smart in getting there clients off because they knew the science behind catching arsonists was not yet properly developed.
Unless you had finger prints or other solid evidence to get convictions it was hard to bring Charges and Insurance company's just paid off VS a court fight and District Attorneys not wanting to look bad losing a case and hurting there chances of becoming a judge often did not want to prosecute.Something that still goes on with too many DA's turning down cases they might loose.
Then you also had Crooked firefighters, investigators,Insurance adjusters and judges etc all in on the fix .
It still goes on to this day where advanced rings of arsonists operate freely with out risk of prosecution.
and the fact many fire codes even to this day do not require anything more than a lock and chain on a sprinkler valve to prevent it being closed.
Plus there are still too many fire investigators out there investigating fires who do not have proper training doing there jobs and those who are trained who posit theory's and have nothing to back it up with than the fancy initials behind their name.
For every fire ruled arson and then found to be not arson after trails etc you can bet money on the bank there are just as many fires ruled accidents that where really arson.
They say Prostitution is one of the oldest crimes on the book well arson is right there with it being mentioned in the bible.
