Just a week after Charles “Charlie” Smith III entered a guilty plea for all 68 charges of arson and conspiracy to commit arson in Accomack County Circuit Court, we’re getting the first look at the police interviews from the day he was arrested.
The DVDs contain hours of Smith talking about the arson spree with investigators on the morning of his arrest in early April.
The tapes, coupled with a lengthy stipulation of facts, paint a clear picture of why the fires started and why there was nothing random about some of the targets.
Smith also told investigators that many of the early fires were actually set by Tonya Bundick, though she’s only being charged in connection to the last fire.
It was only after a close call in Tasley, where Smith says Bundick was nearly caught in the act, that he started setting the fires to protect her.
And Smith says they didn’t always agree, especially on a church fire that Smith says he was dead-set against.
As he rode around with investigators who had been looking for him for months, Smith even admitted he wasn’t entirely thrilled that it was over.
