Thomas Sweat: Serial Arsonist In The US

When people think of serial offenders, often the first to come to mind is serial killers and possibly sex offenders. Likewise, when people think of a house fire, people usually assume it is due to electrical failures or a negligent individual rather than a serial arsonist. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, defines arson as “any willful or malicious burning or attempting to burn, with or without intent to defraud, a dwelling house, public building, motor vehicle or aircraft, personal property of another, etc”. Thomas sweat is possible the most famous arsonist in the Maryland and Washington DC area and arguably the united states history. Over the course of his pre-incarceration life, sweat took credit for over 350 fires, some of

When Thomas Sweatt saw an attractive man, he would follow him home, rather than speaking to the the gentleman he found attractive, he would become emotional at the thought of not having him or seeing him again and thus resorting to setting fire to the man’s house or car. For more than 20 years, Sweatt set hundreds of fires in the metro Washington, DC, area. Sweatt often tossed incendiary devices into police cars and then watched them burn. Sweatts way of setting fires where often repetitive “he would fill a milk jug with gasoline and plug the opening with a piece of clothing that served as a wick” (Jamison 2007). Sweat was

Economic issues played a role in sweats criminal behavior. Sweat lived in a relatively poor neighborhood in the Washington DC area. He was a fry cook at Roy Rogers restaurant and admired nice décor. Dave Jamison, a reporter at the Washington City Paper, interviewed sweatt and inquired reasoning for his criminal behavior. Sweat had many reasons for his actions to include, he set thing on fire that he could never obtain for himself, he liked the feeling of power and the sense of need the people showed when they scrambled out of their homes. Additionally, He committed many of his arsons in the Washington DC and Prince George county area, which has a marine base near. Sweat had an obsession with men in uniform, this location opened the door for sweatt to see more men in uniform fueling his desire to burn