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Copper-pipe theft preceded blast, police believe
YOUNGSTOWN
Police believe someone may have stolen copper pipes out of a Hazelwood Avenue home shortly before the house exploded, and they are looking to speak with a suspect.
It was just after 3 p.m. Wednesday when the area around Hazelwood and Connecticut avenues was rocked by the explosion of a small house that sits at that corner.
The house was for sale and had been vacant for several years.
A witness told police officers responding to the scene that a West Side man had inquired as to whether there was any copper piping left in the vacant corner house. This person told officers he believed the man may have been in the house at the time of or shortly before the explosion.
Officers determined the man was not in the house at the time of the explosion, but reports say police believe he was in the house before the explosion attempting to remove copper piping.
When contacted by The Vindicator on Thursday, the man in question said no police officers have spoken with him about the incident, but he emphatically denies ever being in the home.
The man said he smelled natural gas while taking a short cut through the yard of the house before the explosion and contacted Dominion East Ohio Gas Co. via telephone and email. He said after contacting the gas company he went to go hang out with friends.
“I didn’t even hear about the explosion until later that night on the news,” he said. “I was never in that house.”
Police reports list the man as a suspect in the case, but he has not been charged with any crime.
Capt. Alvin Ware, the fire department’s chief fire investigator, said it is fortunate no one was killed in the explosion. He said copper thefts gone awry are becoming far too common here and across the country, often with tragic endings.
“This could have been a lot worse at that time of day, with kids out and a major highway right there,” Ware said.
Scrap-metal theft has become such a problem in the city that Youngstown police have dedicated a unit to investigating the crimes. Calls to the unit were not returned Thursday.
Wednesday’s explosion is not the first time a Mahoning Valley home has been leveled by a gas leak from a line damaged by scrap-metal theft.
Donald F. Shelley, 25, of Girard was sentenced to four years in prison for causing the explosion on Washington Street, Girard, that damaged 50 homes and injured four people Sept. 18, 2008.
Police say Shelley stole scrap metal from a home on the street, which damaged a gas line that led to the explosion and fire. The explosion leveled that unoccupied home and set a neighboring home on fire.
About 50 families living near the explosion were affected by the blast with shattered windows in their homes and foundations that shifted with the force.
Two men were also sentenced to time in prison earlier this year for the theft of copper from vacant houses they set on fire to retrieve the metal.
Peter Sahagun, 21, of North Schenley Avenue, and Dustin Rogers, 22, of North Richview Avenue, pleaded guilty to two counts of arson.
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentenced each man to six months in prison on each of the two arson charges.