Two men were arrested Tuesday after they were found to have set a vehicle on fire on the Gurley residence in Monterey.
Police were called after a witness saw a vehicle leaving the scene of a vehicle fire. Police approached the suspect vehicle and found Knox residents 35-year-old Ryan Taylor and 34-year-old Kenneth K. Wallace inside. The officer said that he was investigating a vehicle fire and told Taylor that it was his mother’s 2002 Pontiac Grand Am that was on fire. He said that the vehicle was in town at his grandmother’s house and it had been there for some time and it needed transmission work.
The officer asked to search the vehicle and inside, the officer found a pack of three flares next to the passenger seat with one missing from the pack. When asked what it was for, Wallace said that Taylor allegedly drove the vehicle to Monterey and he followed in his truck and then Taylor lit one of the flares, threw it in the vehicle and set it on fire. Police reportedly found a burnt flare in the vehicle. Taylor and Wallace were both arrested and taken to the Starke County Jail on a preliminary charge of Arson. Formal charges from the Starke County Prosecutor’s Office are pending.
The Bass Lake and Monterey Fire Departments were called to the scene and extinguished the fire.
