By Roger Amsden
The Union Leader
ALTON, N.H. — Police say a 22-year veteran firefighter has confessed to setting 11 fires over the last four years in this community and in New Durham.
Police Chief Ryan Heath said that Stark Liedtke, 43, was never a suspect in the fires.
“From what he tells us, these were all random acts brought on by boredom,” said Heath, who said additional charges are expected to be filed.
News of the arrest stunned members of the Alton Fire Department, where Liedtke’s wife is an EMT. Alton Fire Chief Scott Williams said Stark Liedtke was “let go” by the department as of yesterday, but his wife remains a member of the fire department.
Heath said Liedtke’s family was shocked at the arrest.
“We’re still trying to piece this all together,” he said.
Police say Liedtke was arrested Friday night after police responded to a report of a suspicious person on Range Road in Alton. A police officer saw Liedtke exiting Hannaford’s and then walking through the grocery store parking lot and toward the exit onto Route. 28. When questioned, Liedtke said that he had bought milk and doughnuts at the store and was walking back to his vehicle, which he said was parked at Alton Circle grocery, about 400 feet away.
When it was found that his vehicle was not where he claimed, police again questioned Liedtke, whose clothes smelled of gasoline. He was placed under arrest for loitering and prowling.
Police said during questioning, Liedtke confessed that he had been trying to set ablaze an abandoned home on New Durham Road which had partially burned in a suspicious fire on Feb. 20. He subsequently admitted to setting three other abandoned buildings on fire in Alton and three other buildings in New Durham, as well as setting four forest fires in the Route 28 area since 2006.
Police found a large box of matches as well as a head lamp similar to that used by miners on Liedtke’s person. An accelerant-sniffing dog brought to the area by Sgt. John Southwell of the state Fire Marshal’s Office led investigators to two plastic bottles of gasoline in the woods. Liedtke’s vehicle was found not far away, parked behind a state Department of Transportation building adjacent to Hannaford’s.
After the February fire, a police dog had led police to the back parking lot at the Hannaford’s, where the trail was lost.
Of the fires Liedtke confessed to setting, two were in unoccupied buildings on the property of the former Alton Auto Salvage property.
They were owned at that time by Ronald Martin and burned just days apart on Aug. 2 and Aug. 6, 2006. Another unoccupied building, which had been vacant for more than 10 years and was owned by Delma Rollins, burned on Nov. 22, 2006.
At the time of the November 2006 fire, former Alton fire chief Alan Johnson said that it was the fifth fire of suspicious origin in the last six months in the same area near Route 28, with four of those fires involving unoccupied structures. He said an abandoned farm on Old Ridge Road in New Durham had burned on Aug. 7, one day after the second Alton Auto Salvage fire.
Liedtke was arraigned in Laconia District Court yesterday on four charges of arson, three of which date back to 2006, and one count of attempted arson, as well as loitering or prowling and criminal trespass charges.
He is being held on $30,000 cash bail and faces a probable cause hearing on March 31.
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