Former student at career center found innocent of setting $14M fire

By Ed Runyan

Patricia Schindler will be sentenced on a misdemeanor offense Aug. 18.

YOUNGSTOWN — Though a state investigator determined the $14 million fire at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center was set on purpose, evidence presented at trial failed to prove that Pamela Schindler was the person who started it.

That was the decision issued Tuesday by Richard White, the magistrate in Mahoning County Juvenile Court, in finding the 18-year-old Salem-area woman innocent of a felony charge of aggravated arson.

The magistrate did, however, find her guilty of obstructing official business, a misdemeanor.

White will sentence her at 3 p.m. Aug. 18 after the Mahoning County Juvenile Probation Department conducts a predisposition report, a court official said.

Schindler could get up to 90 days in juvenile detention on the conviction.

The fire destroyed one wing of the building, located on Palmyra Road in Canfield, May 4, 2007.

In his decision, White summarized the testimony presented during the one-day trial in the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center last month.

He noted that Cody Deal, one of Schindler’s classmates in the multimedia class at the vocational school, testified to seeing Schindler hold a lighter 3 to 4 inches above a bucket of flammable solvent, which then ignited instantly.

But White noted that Deal’s testimony differed drastically from that of other students from the class.

Deal’s testimony had to be weighed against “contradictory evidence” presented by Chuck Hanni, assistant state fire marshal, White said. Hanni said heptane, the chemical contained in the solvent, is three to four times heavier than air and therefore moves downward, not up.

“Mr. Hanni testified that an open flame must come into very close proximity to the liquid to ignite the vapor, as the vapor does not rise,” White wrote.

“Based on the expert testimony, an open flame held as far above the liquid as described by Cody Deal would not ‘instantly’ ignite the vapor,” the decision says.

Deal’s testimony was different from other students’ on what type of bucket the solvent was in, whether rags or sponges were used to clean the table and whether another student touched the bucket after it caught fire.

“The magistrate is mindful of the magnitude of the damage done by this fire. However, the magnitude of the damage does not serve to lessen the burden of proof — a burden clearly not met,” he wrote.

The obstruction charge stemmed from the investigation of Detective Andrew Bodzak of the Canfield Police Department, who interviewed Schindler on May 9, June 11 and July 9 while trying to find out whether she had a lighter with her the day of the fire.

When Bodzak asked Schindler whether she smoked, Schindler said she didn’t anymore. But later she admitted she occasionally did. Schindler also denied having asked a classmate to take her somewhere to buy cigarettes after school on the day of the fire, but she and a classmate later admitted she had done this, White wrote.

The classmate, Kyle Lane, was later convicted of obstructing official business for not being honest about whether he had given a student named Abby Welsh a lighter about 15 minutes before the fire started.

Schindler, 17 at the time of the fire, is from West South Range Road north of Salem. If she had been convicted of the aggravated arson, she could have been placed in a juvenile detention facility until she was 21.

runyan@vindy.com