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Four arrested, charged with burglary, theft in Cairo fire

BY LINDA RUSH
The Southern

Four men have been arrested on charges of burglary and theft in the aftermath of a fire that destroyed a vacant building Monday evening in Cairo.

The Cairo Police Department said William D. "Billy" Frey, 49, of Cairo, and Allen K. Woolard, 34, Bobby E. Woodworth, 33, and Jeremy L. Connor, 26, all of Christopher, are being held at Tri-County Detention Center in Ullin.

Police Chief Gary L. Hankins said in a news release that the case is not being pursued as an arson because Cairo Fire Chief John Meyer said the fire was started accidentally while the four were inside the building using a cutting torch.

Materials believed to have been taken from the building were found in two pickup trucks parked behind the building. The trucks belonged to two of the suspects.

The Cairo Fire Department was called at about 5:35 p.m. to the building in the 800 block of Commercial Avenue. The four men were taken into custody after it was determined they did not have permission to be in the building nor to remove anything from inside. None of the four suspects was injured in the fire.

The building is owned by Cairo Public Utility Co., whose offices are at 1100 Commercial Ave.

Charles McGinnis, accountant for the utility, said the building was vacant and scheduled to be torn down. "The men had been seen in the building earlier by an employee, who told them they were trespassing and to leave," McGinnis said. They apparently returned after business hours, apparently to salvage metal from inside the structure.

"Thanks to them, we're having to replace poles and a transformer bank behind the building," McGinnis said. The poles and transformers were damaged by the fire, leaving about 20 customers, both businesses and residential users, without power until today. "A restaurant lost an entire day of business, and people were left without heat because of the outage," he said.