Cops: Woman sets rental home ablaze after eviction
UPPER DARBY >> A 29-year-old woman is wanted for torching the Upper Darby home where she was evicted and calling to tell the homeowner that she allegedly did it, authorities said.
Upper Darby Police Department is looking for Tracey Davis, reportedly of Philadelphia, to answer to five felony charges including arson for setting fire to a home in the first block of North Keystone Avenue early Sunday morning. Online court records list additional charges of causing catastrophe, burglary, criminal trespassing and criminal mischief. Four misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering another person have also been filed in the case.
In the affidavit of probable cause filed by Detective Philip Lydon, Upper Darby police and fire departments responded to a fire at 12:07 a.m. Sunday on North Keystone with heavy smoke coming from the front second-floor bedroom. When the fire was extinguished Upper Darby Deputy Fire Chief Timothy Boyce found “a pile of clothing in the middle of the room appeared to have been lit on fire” with the “possible presence of an unknown accelerant.” The items were put into an arson evidence canister.
Neighbors in connecting residences reportedly escaped uninjured.
An officer at the front desk at police headquarters that morning said she received a call from the person who owns the home. He told the officer that Davis called him and said, “I told you I would get you back, I just lit the house up!,” according to the affidavit. Police have successfully tracked the number used to call the homeowner back to Davis.
Police talked to the homeowner later that morning where he told them that she “lit the house on fire for payback from February,” when he put her out of the house. Davis supposedly stayed with him for two or three months. He had recognized her voice over the phone and was positively identified in a photo array.
Another witness from the house fire said he had was smoking a cigarette between 11:30 and 11:45 p.m. when he saw a woman he knew, known to him as “Haze” from when she used to live at the North Keystone address, came up to speak with him. He went inside and heard Davis knocking on the door of her former residence. Fifteen minutes later he had heard a knock on his door and an unknown male telling him his house was on fire. She, too, was positively identified during a separate photo array.
Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said Davis is still on the loose and they have not been able to make contact with her. He said the police and fire department’s close proximity and response time to the fire prevented the possible destruction of an entire block.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Upper Darby detectives at 610-734-3439.