Students testify in MCCTC fire trial

By Ed Runyan

A defense attorney said one witness was ‘clearly mistaken’ in what he said he saw.

YOUNGSTOWN — One witness to the $14 million May 4, 2007, fire in the interactive multimedia class at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center in Canfield said he saw Pamela Schindler start the fire by lighting a bucket of solvent.

But other students who testified Monday in Schindler’s aggravated arson trial said they didn’t see anything like that, and described a set of circumstances that pointed to a different culprit.

Schindler, 18, of West South Range Road north of Salem, went on trial in the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center. The trial concluded after about five hours of testimony, with the verdict to be decided later by Magistrate Richard White, who presided over the trial without a jury.

If convicted, she could be placed in juvenile custody until she turns 21. She was 17 when the fire occurred.

Former classmate Cody Deal, a prosecution witness, said he was typing a paper at a computer in the front of the class when he saw Schindler “with a lighter and a bucket in her hands” and “seen her light the bucket.”

At that point, student Kyle Layne ran toward her, took the bucket, tried to turn it upside down, fumbled it and then dropped it a second time on his way to the sink. The bucket caused a table and the floor to catch on fire, he said.

Classmate Holly Etto said she doesn’t know how the fire started, but saw the burning bucket on the floor and saw Layne take the bucket to the sink, where he splashed the flames and liquid onto a wall.

Layne, Schindler and student Caitlin Shea told a different story — that Layne never touched the burning bucket and that only Schindler handled it after it was on fire.

Etto and Layne testified to a conversation that took place about 15 to 20 minutes before the fire broke out that suggested a different person might have started the blaze.

Layne said he was one of the several students who was using a class computer when he and others started joking about how paint thinner could start a fire. Layne and Etto said another female student had taken a cigarette lighter from Layne at around that time, but they don’t know how the fire got started, they said.

Layne pleaded no contest to obstructing official business in the case last September for failing to tell police initially about the other girl having taken the lighter from him.

Schindler also is also charged with obstructing official business. Kerry Limbian, the assistant Mahoning County prosecutor handling the case, said Schindler failed to cooperate with police when they asked her whether she smoked.

At first she said she didn’t, but later she admitted she sometimes did, said Canfield Detective Andrew Bodzak.

Teacher Melissa Hackett, interactive multimedia instructor in charge of the class, said she gave permission for Schindler and another girl to use the solvent to clean tables because the tables had become sticky from rubber cement.

Using the flammable solvent was commonplace in the classroom, and students had been trained on proper use of such chemicals, Hackett testified.

The 15-year veteran of the program said she left the classroom after the girls had started cleaning so she could get information out of a mailbox for a project that the class was going to carry out for a customer.

The fire started during the two to three minutes she was gone, she said.

John Zehentbauer, the school’s principal, said he got a report of a fight, discovered that it was actually a fire, saw the fire on top of a cabinet, ordered everyone out of the area, and tried to put out the fire with an extinguisher. He was driven back by the smoke, he said.

The 37,500-square-foot “C” wing of the building, which contained the multimedia class, was a total loss and was razed. Electrical components and the fire alarm in the 180,000-square-foot building had to be replaced, everything cleaned and walls repainted. Cost from the fire so far is $18 million to $19 million, he said.

A contract to replace the “C” wing will be awarded sometime this summer, and it will be ready to occupy in fall 2009, officials say. A separate expansion phase is also planned.

Defense attorney Gus Theofilos, in his closing arguments, said Deal was “clearly mistaken” in his version of events because it doesn’t match the statements given by any of the other students.

The interactive multimedia program provides training in creating artwork in the digital design, graphic communications and visual arts fields.

runyan@vindy.com