BAKERSVILLE —
A Bakersville area man was charged with arson Monday after authorities said he carried out his threat to burn his house down.
Jay D. Shaulis, 47, of the 100 block of Trout Farm Road, allegedly set fire to his Jefferson Township house on June 27, state police in Somerset said.
Shaulis was the only one home at the time the fire started on the porch area, troopers said.
Investigators interviewed Shaulis at Somerset Hospital the same day.
“He related a short circuit occurred in a lamp, his wife lit a roll of toilet paper on fire with a match, he placed a thermonuclear device on the porch,” troopers said in a court document.
Shaulis then lifted his hospital gown and said “the fire started right here,” troopers said.
Shaulis’s wife said she had moved out of the house a week earlier because of her husband’s odd behavior. He had previously threatened to sit fire to the house, she told troopers.
Shaulis was charged with arson and related offenses and criminal mischief.
He has yet to be arraigned.
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