Pierce County prosecutors have charged a woman with first-degree arson and second-degree malicious mischief, alleging she set her former boyfriend’s car on fire in Tacoma and damaged a nearby home where four people were inside. Stephanie Marie Rideout was charged Tuesday in Pierce County Superior Court. The state requested $150,000 bail.
The fire began around 11:39 p.m. on Saturday in a 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra parked along South 53rd Street, according to court documents. The vehicle’s owner told police Rideout was his former girlfriend, that they have children together and that they were breaking up.
A witness said she stepped outside and saw Rideout near the burning car as flames reached a second-story window of the neighboring home. The witness told police a man grabbed a hose and tried to put out the fire, but Rideout attempted to stop him and yelled, “Let it burn.” The man eventually pulled Rideout away because he feared the car could explode, according to the court documents.
Another neighbor warned the people inside the house about the fire. Four residents evacuated before Tacoma firefighters arrived and extinguished the flames. Police said heat from the fire melted vinyl siding and a plastic electrical box on the house.
KING-TV NBC 5 Seattle
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