Estranged husband of house fire victim in custody

AKRON » The estranged husband of one of seven people killed in an Akron house has been detained on a suspected parole violation.

Officials did not specify the violation but said Patrick Boggs, 47, is being held at the Portage County Jail. He is the husband of Angela Boggs, 38, who died in the fire early Monday along with her partner, five children and a family dog.

Fire authorities have not determined the cause of the fire or whether it was a crime, said Lt. Robert Wroblewski, an investigator with the Akron Fire Department.

Patrick Boggs, from Ravenna in Northeast Ohio, spent more than a decade in prison for pouring kerosene on Angela Boggs and threatening to set her on fire with a lighter in February 2001. He was released in 2013.

The couple married in 1998. Court records show Patrick Boggs had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and was found guilty of domestic violence in 2000.

In 2001, he was found guilty of aggravated arson, assault, and domestic violence and sentenced to 12 years, three months in prison. The charges stemmed from an incident at the couple’s trailer that prompted Angela Boggs’ mother to call police.

An officer found that Patrick Boggs was intoxicated and that Angela Boggs had a black eye and bruises on her arm, according to a sheriff’s report. Angela Boggs told an officer that a few days before, Patrick Boggs had straddled and beat her, dosed her with kerosene, flicked a lighter at her and joked about setting their trailer on fire.

He was upset about phone conversations she’d had with a man she met at the dialysis center where she worked, she told the officer.

The stench of kerosene was noticeable on their clothes, officers said. They found a lighter on Patrick Boggs after he was put in jail.

Years after the arrest, Angela Boggs met Dennis Huggins, an electrician, through Huggins’ older brother, Durand Huggins. He said his brother began dating Angela Boggs after he introduced them and that she had occasionally talked about her relationship with Patrick Boggs, describing it as “rocky.”