The Charleston Gazette
ALUM CREEK, W.Va. — A grand jury has indicted an Alum Creek man on murder charges Friday for allegedly igniting a fire that inadvertently caused a local volunteer firefighter to slip from a bridge and fall to his death.
Charles Darren Roberts, 37, faces charges of third-degree arson, fourth-degree arson and first-degree murder for setting fire to a tire near the Steven Wayne Smith Memorial Bridge last year and incidentally igniting 160 railroad ties, according to authorities.
At about 2 a.m. the morning of the fire on Dec. 4, Joey King, 61, a Davis Creek volunteer firefighter, slipped and fell from the bridge while looking for the tire.
After an unrelated arrest, Roberts was housed with Shawn Lester, the man suspected of shooting and killing three people with a scoped rifle in 2003.
Roberts testified at Lester’s preliminary hearing in April 2011 that Lester had confided in him the details of the triple slaying.
Roberts said Lester confided that he killed Jeannie Patton, Okey Meadows and Gary Carrier Jr. in retaliation for a drug theft, especially since the drugs belonged to a Mexican national named “Tito.”
Lester’s defense lawyers accused Roberts of acting as a “jailhouse snitch” in order to escape his own potential charges.
“I could have got out of my charges anyway,” Roberts told Kanawha County Chief Public Defender George Castelle.
Copyright 2012 Charleston Newspapers