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Last updated on Wednesday, October 10, 2012
(MITCHELL) - According to a probable cause affidavit 32-year-old Cody Brooks entered his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, poured gasoline on her couch and lit the duplex on fire Thursday evening.
The duplex owned by John Gass was destroyed leaving two families homeless.
Brooks, of Orleans, was arrested by Bedford Police Department officers Saturday at the Mark III Motel on warrants for two counts of arson and criminal recklessness.
According to police Brooks and several other people armed with baseball bats were fighting on Main Street before the blaze started. When Mitchell Police Officer Cain Gilstrap arrived, Dakota Reynolds told police his mother's ex-boyfriend, Brooks, who was driving a black Sonoma, tried to run Dakota over with the truck and then tried to flee the scene.
Gilstrap says that he was on his way to the Clark station on Ind. 37. Gilstrap drove there, but couldn't find Brooks. While there, police were notified about a house fire in the 100 block of Dale Street. When firefighters from Mitchell Volunteer Fire Department arrived the duplex was engulfed in flames. The duplex was destroyed.
While at the scene, police talked to Devin Reynolds, Sheila Reynolds' ex-husband. He told officers that Brooks entered the duplex, ordered Reynolds off the couch and began pouring gasoline on the floor and couch and ignited it.
Devin Reynolds fled the apartment and that's when Brooks got in the truck, drove through the yard and hit Reynolds with the vehicle. Reynolds suffered bruises and abrasions and was treated and released at a local hospital.
Officers also spoke with Danielle Malin, who occupied the apartment at 121 Dale St. She was in the dwelling with her two children, ages 2 months and 1 year, when she heard a guy swearing and banging on the door to the neighboring apartment and yelling to open the door or he was going to burn the house down. She told police she heard a man, who police say was Brooks, leave in his truck. That is when she smelled the odor of gasoline, grabbed her two children and fled from her home.
Officers spoke to Cody Brook's brother Josh. He told police that Cody had called him and told him he "lit a house on fire." He also told police his brother was driving a truck that didn't belong to him.
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