Prosecutors dismissed two charges of arson against a Santa Cruz man, who’s accused of lighting his mother’s house on fire and then returning to the house after the fire had been put out and setting it on fire a second time.
Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies sought a nation-wide arrest warrant for Harvey Arellano, 40, on Nov. 10 and prosecutors dismissed the charges two days later, on Nov. 12, and the warrant was canceled a day later, Nov. 13, after the two fires on Nov. 7.
Prosecutor Jennifer Padgett filed the dismissal, writing that the criminal charges could be brought again in magistrate court or presented to a grand jury for an indictment.
Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Detective Ian Burr wrote in an affidavit for Arellano’s arrest that he is believed to have set fire to the La Puebla home in two separate parts of the house in the morning, then came back to the house that evening, after firefighters left, and set it on fire a second time, evidenced by surveillance footage showing a man fleeing from the house after a “large burst of fire occurred in the residence.”
Arellano’s mother Betty Lopez told police that her son hears voices, which tell him to “do things,” and has a history of lighting things on fire, Burr wrote.
When Lopez and her boyfriend left her house the morning of the fires, Arellano was praying and she saw burnt foils in his room, because she allows him to smoke fentanyl in his room when no one else is home, Burr wrote.
When she got to Rio Rancho she checked her surveillance cameras and saw the screen was gray.
At first she thought her son covered the cameras, then realized it was smoke, he wrote.
Fire investigator Justin Turpin told Burr that it appeared the first fire was started by someone burning clothes and “construction combustibles” and that it was started in two separate parts of the house, Burr wrote.
Lopez told Burr she thought her son was responsible because of his history of starting fires and because he often “hears voices that tell him to do things,” Burr wrote.
At 7:17 p.m. that night, after firefighters put out the first fire, another 911 call came in for the same house. Deputies tried to find Arellano in the area but were unsuccessful.
A neighbor’s surveillance camera showed a man “matching the description of Harvey Arellano with long hair running from the residence after a large burst of fire occurred in the residence,” Burr wrote.
Flames engulfed the interior of the house, coming out of the front door and side window and the man was seen running to a sedan and leaving the area, he wrote.