BELLEVILLE, Ill. (KMOX) - “Idiots”…”partners in crime”…terms used by law enforcers to describe two men arrested for a string of arson fires in and around Freeburg Illinois since late April.
23-year-old Bryan Boide of Belleville and 19-year-old Nicholas Haegele of O’Fallon Ill. are being held on $1 million bond each on six counts of arson.
Charges are pending in a seventh fire.
“Without a doubt a Beavis and Butthead duo,” said Captain Steven Johnson with the St. Clair County sheriff’s department during a mid-morning news conference in Belleville.
The end of the road for the two suspected arsonists came just after midnight Thursday, when a homeowner on Bay Pointe Drive east of Freeburg noticed somebody with flashlights moving around on his property.
He went outside with a rifle and confronted the two men and “basically made a citizen’s arrest”.
Without a cell phone, the homeowner marched the pair at muzzle point over to a neighbor’s house to summon police to the scene.
Since late April, there have been more than a half-dozen arson cases, usually targeting sheds, barns or other outbuildings.
Authorities say they’ve not been able to determine a motive for the arson spree.
Bryan Boide
- Nicholas Haegele
