Amherst Co. man sentenced for setting Ex-Girlfriend’s trailer on fire

By Aaron Lee
New Era Progress
Published: June 12, 2008

A county man who lit a fire last summer that destroyed his ex-girlfriend’s double-wide trailer was sentenced to serve five years in prison on Wednesday.

The fire started last summer when Charlie Thomas Ware, 51, broke into Eleanor Seawell’s trailer on Elon Road and used gasoline to light the master bedroom on fire, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Anthony Martin said.

Martin said the couple broke up several days prior to the July 17 fire, under protest from Ware, who lived less than five miles away on Wilderness Creek Road. He was arrested the day after the fire, Martin said. No one was injured in the fire.

On Wednesday, Seawell said that since the fire, she has lived in a shed on the same property in Monroe, which is owned by a relative, because there is not enough space for her in her father’s house.
The shed has electricity, she said.

Defense attorney Margaret Nelson said Ware was someone who’d held the same well-paying job as a maintenance man for 30 years. She said if released, he could find similar work and begin making restitution to Seawell.

On Wednesday, Ware was sentenced to 20 years for the arson with 15 years suspended and 20 years, all time suspended, for statutory burglary.

He has spent the last 11 months in jail.

Judge J. Michael Gamble heard Ware’s case in Amherst Circuit Court during a two-day bench trial in January. On Wednesday, he called Ware’s actions “unacceptable in a civilized society.”