ANATOMY OF ARSON

Scars Remain From Drug Dealer's Torching Of Lima Family's Home

LIMA, Ohio - On March 29, more than 100 people gathered on a vacant
lot on Leland Avenue, where a woman and four teenagers died in a house
fire the year before.

It was a memorial service organized at the last minute and poorly
publicized. Still, schoolchildren, parents, firemen, and community
leaders came, huddling in a circle and holding candles whose flames
were long extinguished by the cold wind.

After a year of trials and questions, details from the deadly fire
were finally emerging. Four innocent children and a young mother had
been caught in the middle of a drug gang's desire for drugs and
revenge. They died in a fire that was not set for them, but for a man
who lived in the house and was suspected by the dealers of stealing
cocaine.

The community, shaken by the details of the crime, had gathered to
make sense of it all.

"Here were five sweet innocent people. They had to pay for someone
else's wrongdoing," said Earlene Foster, who organized the memorial.
"I think this will never leave people's mind. People are still talking
about it like it's yesterday."

Mother Worked Hard To Better Her Children

Marian Wright worked hard to keep her four children happy and doing
well in school.

Friends said Ms. Wright, 33, born and reared in Lima, was big on
family. A cook at the local MCL Cafeteria, Ms. Wright was passionate
about cooking and famous for barbecues that would fill her backyard
with people.

Ms. Wright was raising her own two children, Marquis, 16, and
Marshonda, 13, as well as her fiance's children, Ravis Bunley, 14, and
his 17-year-old sister Rodnina.

"They were all one family. It didn't matter whose kids they were,"
said Diane Jones, Ms. Wright's sister.

Marquis went to Lima Senior High School and Rodnina went to Lima's
alternative high school. Both worked part time at a Wendy's
restaurant. Marquis was the lady's man, always attracting the eyes of
the teenage girls, his uncle Kevin Jones said. Rodnina was quieter.

Marshonda was in the seventh grade at West Middle School, where she
was a cheerleader and the spirit of the class. Ravis attended a school
for mentally retarded children; Ms. Jones said he was one of the
happiest boys she'd ever seen.

Ms. Wright rented a house on Leland Avenue on the west side of Lima
with Rodney Bunley, her 41-year-old fiance. Bunley had a troubled past
that included at least two drug convictions.

Ms. Wright looked past that, her family said.

"He took care of that family like they were all his own. I know what
people have said about him, about his past, but when he was with her,
he wasn't like that," Ms. Jones said.

Still, Bunley's history was about to come back and play a deadly role
in the lives of Ms. Wright and the children.

Drug Dealer Puts Together A Major Lima Drug Ring

About the same time that Ms. Wright and Bunley met, a drug ring led by
Samuel Williams was kicking into high gear in Lima. At one point,
authorities say Williams was selling up to 15 kilograms of cocaine a
month.

"That is fairly significant for a city like Lima," said Dan Berry,
assistant Allen County prosecutor. "We didn't have any idea Sam
Williams was this big an operator. He was a major drug dealer."

Williams had the connections to get a constant supply of drugs into
Lima, authorities said, but it was his "lieutenants" and people who
worked for them who sold the drugs, Mr. Berry said. One of those
dealers was Corey Summerhill.

Summerhill, 23, and Sam Williams were cousins. In an interview with
The Blade at the Ohio prison where he is serving a life sentence,
Summerhill said he was storing a kilogram of cocaine in his house
early last year when he was arrested on drug charges. Fearing police
would search his house, he called his girlfriend and had her give the
drugs to someone else.

When Summerhill posted bond about two weeks later, the drugs were
returned to him. But a few days later, someone broke into his house
and stole about $30,000 worth of cocaine.

Williams wanted the drugs back, and Summerhill said he felt pressure
to deliver. They and others in the drug gang mulled over the list of
suspects and settled on a culprit: Rodney Bunley.

Bunley served six months in prison in 1988 for drug abuse and two
years in the early 1990s for drug trafficking. Summerhill said Bunley
was targeted because Bunley's niece asked Summerhill's girlfriend to
leave the house to go shopping together, and when they returned a
short time later, the drugs were gone.

Williams hatched a plan. If he couldn't get the drugs back, he would
at least teach a lesson about betrayal.

"He wanted to make a statement: 'If you mess with me and my people,
there are dire consequences you have to face,'" Mr. Berry said.

It's hard to say if Bunley took the drugs.

Williams felt strongly enough that it was Bunley to target Bunley's
house, and the rest of the gang went along with it. In retrospect,
Summerhill said he's not so sure.

"I don't think it was Rodney Bunley," he said, adding that he
suspected some people who live near him. Investigators said they might
never know.

"He's never confirmed that. If you believed the [suspects], you
believed it happened," Lima police Detective Ed Monfort said.

Williams' idea was to toss Molotov cocktails - bottles filled with
gasoline and a lit fuse - into the house. Williams thought that when
Bunley realized his house was on fire, he'd grab the most valuable
possession - the drugs - and run out of the house.

Williams paid Michael Wright $2,000 to throw the fire bombs into the
house. Williams hired another man, Tyronne Simmons, to be ready with a
gun to rob Bunley when he came out, Mr. Berry said.

For more help, Williams looked to his drug crew. Mr. Berry said
although some of them were troubled with the plan, they had little
choice but to sign up.

"He gave the directions. Nobody planned it except Sam. They were
dependent on their supply of cocaine from Sam. They pretty much did
what he told them," he said.

Williams vehemently denies the charges, despite his conviction. His
girlfriend, Irene Mayes, who has two children with Williams, said he
was with her the night of the fire and that he is not the big drug
dealer he is made out to be.

For his part, Summerhill insists that he agreed to rob Bunley, but had
no idea of the fire bombing plan until he saw somebody making the
Molotov cocktails in a basement just hours before the fire.

But he knew there were children sleeping in the house. The Bunley
children were his cousins.

"I told them, 'If you're going to rob the house at 11 p.m., there are
going to be children in there sleeping,'" Summerhill said.

Investigators suspect that at least some of the other men knew about
Ms. Wright and the children too.

"The two or three leaders knew. The others weren't interested enough
to care," Mr. Berry said.

Summerhill said he and most of the others drove across town to the
house of Bunley's brother, where they had orders to kick in the door
and take whatever drugs and money they could find. Williams called a
lookout on Leland Avenue to make sure Bunley was home.

About 11 p.m., Michael Wright slipped quietly into the neighborhood
and tossed the Molotov cocktails through the front living-room
windows. Upstairs, Ms. Wright and Bunley were startled awake by a
house full of smoke and flames. Neighbors said they saw the couple at
the upstairs window. They heard an explosion and the screams of the
occupants. The woman next door frantically dialed 911.

Fire Chief'S Last Day Marred By Fatal House Fire

March 29, 2000, was John Brookman's last day as Lima fire
chief.

His 40-plus years of firefighting, including the last 20 years as the
department's head, were dwindling down to just minutes when the fire
alarm sounded at 11:30 p.m.

"Most of the time, by the time the chief is called, the firefighters
have everything under control. Then there's that 1 percent that is the
chief's worst nightmare," he said.

Chief Brookman knew the fire was bad when he rolled onto Leland
Avenue. Because the fire was fueled by gasoline and the house was old
and wooden, flames spread instantaneously. By the time crews arrived,
it was well out of control.

We lost the house, the chief thought.

Then someone told him that there were people trapped inside: three,
four people at least - some of them children. The chief said it is
hard for him to describe what went through his head next. He tried to
talk about it at last month's memorial service, but was too choked up
to continue.

"Let's just say it's a hell of a way to end your career," he said.
"There have been bad fires before, but this one was different. I was
the chief. On this day, I was responsible."

The chief was not the only one rattled by the fire.

"Oh yeah, it was hard on a lot of the guys, on all of us," said Ted
Brookman, who took over as fire chief when his brother retired. "A
couple of those guys had only been on the job six months. They had
never been to a fatal fire before."

The neighbors, some of them who had been asleep, were drawn outside by
the sound of breaking glass and people screaming. They saw the smoke
and the flames, and they saw Bunley jump out the second-story window.

Someone heard him yell, "Jump!" Ms. Wright, was standing at the
window, hysterical, and then she disappeared back into the house.
Firefighters suspect she went back for the children. Nobody saw her
alive again.

Bunley was hysterical too. "Oh my God. My whole family is in there!"
he screamed.

The fire spread too fast for anyone to attempt a rescue. Some rescue
workers opened the back door, but the sudden burst of air drew the
fire back toward them. The whole house was consumed.

Firefighters and detectives worked on Leland Avenue throughout the
night. The fire was ruled an arson within the week. Lima police set up
extra phone lines to handle the tips that inevitably flood in after a
crime like this.

Meanwhile, the community mourned.

About 3,000 crammed into a church for the funeral, facing five gold
caskets covered with flowers. Classmates of the four children spent
their lunch hours collecting money to cover burial expenses. They
raised more than $300.

Lima has had its share of drug problems, police and prosecutors said.
Drug arrests are everyday occurrences, and 80 percent of the city's
homicides each year are drug-related, Mr. Berry said. But this was
different. These were innocent teenagers.

"If this had been a drug house where you had five druggies killed, I
don't think people would care that much," Mr. Berry said. "But when
you get totally innocent people caught up in the middle of dopers
making statements and trying to get their money back, I guess you
could say it gets your blood pressure up."

The community demanded answers.

"I don't think even people who sell drugs appreciated this.
Immediately people started saying we have to put a stop to this," said
the Rev. Lamont Monford, Sr., who presided over the funeral at
Philippian Missionary Baptist Church in Lima.

Investigators were confident they would put an end to it. By the time
the funeral started, they had their suspects.

Suspects Begin To Talk About Their Roles In Killings

In the days after the fire, Corey Summerhill started to fear that the
others would blame the fire on him, since he was the one who had the
drugs.

He said he decided to tell the police what happened, hoping for a more
lenient sentence. With his probation officer, Summerhill talked to
police about the fire, how it happened, and who was involved.

Investigators said another suspect came forward too, after detectives
started figuring out the plot and began asking questions. With two
practically identical stories, authorities felt comfortable enough to
issue arrest warrants, Mr. Berry said. Seven men were arrested April
13, 2000, and the others were not far behind.

Everyone remotely connected to the fire was rounded up and charged -
men involved with the drugs, those who discussed the plan, the man who
bought the gasoline.

Mr. Berry said it was important to convince some of the men to plead
guilty and testify against the others in exchange for lighter prison
terms.

"You have to get some of them to talk. You can't just use what they
tell detectives. You have to flip at least some of them," he said.
Investigators looked at the men's involvement with the fire and
offered deals accordingly.

Mr. Berry said it was clear some of the men, including Michael Wright,
who threw the fire bombs into the house, were sorry about what they
did.

Eddie White, Jr., who is serving eight years for his role, helped
police recover evidence against Williams. At his sentencing, he
apologized for the fire bombing.

"I should have been the one to stop this before it all happened," he
said.

In the end, only two men - Martice Boddie and Samuel Williams - went
to trial. Both were convicted; Williams got life without parole - the
jury decided against the death penalty - and Boddie got 26 years to
life. Summerhill got life in prison, and the rest pleaded guilty and
got eight to 19 years in prison.

The lightest sentence was given to Eddie McClellan, Williams'
surrogate father, who got 17 months for providing the gasoline.
Summerhill insisted McClellan did not know why he was buying it.
Investigators said at the least, McClellan was the one person who
tried to back out of the plan before it happened.

Ms. Jones, Marian's sister, went to almost all of the court hearings
as they dragged on throughout the year. When the jury decided not to
give Williams the death penalty, she stopped going.

"If I had my way, they'd die the way my sister died," she
said.

Friends, City Try To Move On From That Fiery Night

Every now and then, a car will creep past the spot on Leland Avenue
where Marian and the children died.

The neighbors still notice the cars, although a lot less frequently
than in the first months after the fire. Like the rest of the city,
they're trying to move on.

Ms. Jones, Marian's sister, still cries when she talks about her older
sister. Sometimes at night, she thinks for a split second she can call
her and talk about the day's events.

She said she has talked to Rodney Bunley, and after hours of
discussion, she has made her peace with him. "I don't think he took
those drugs. If I can forgive him and move on, I think everyone else
should be able to too."

Summerhill said he thinks about the fire every day. Sometimes he
wishes he would have kept quiet because he does not think police would
have had enough evidence to convict him. He is angry investigators
promised him a light sentence for his help, then gave him life in
prison. He is not sure if he will fight his prison term or learn to
accept it.

Mr. Monford said he hopes the fire at least makes young people take a
long hard look at their lives.

"This really showed how people can get swept up in activity such as
this so quickly. I don't think some of those young men had any idea
what they were getting into," he said. "You have young people who are
getting ready to spend the rest of their natural lives in prison. They
have to live with what they did."