August 22, 2016
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
A Sayre man is in jail after allegedly blowing up a pickup with gasoline.
21-year-old Tayler Neilson Ford was charged recently with second degree arson and malicious injury to property over $1-thousand dollars.
Ford is being held in the Beckham County Jail on a bond of $100-thousand dollars.
According to a probable cause affidavit, a county deputy was dispatched to a vehicle fire at 12343 North 1980 road early in the morning of August 6, a Saturday.
When he arrived around 3 am, the deputy found a 2006, single cab truck fully engulfed in flames. The probable cause affidavit says the flames were very high and dangerously close to the nearby residence, about 25 yards away. The document says that he noticed a trail of fire leading to the vehicle and a sagging barbed wire fence nearby with a small piece of what looked to be a pink and blue shirt that had been snagged on a barb.
During an investigation, the owner of the vehicle told the deputy that he’d received threatening text messages from Ford. He said Ford thought he’d been “ripped off” by the owner of the pickup after Ford had given money to a friend for marijuana but never received the payment.
Surveillance video from a nearby convenience store showed Ford in the store earlier that night purchasing a cigarillo and five dollars of fuel. The video showed Ford pump gasoline into a red gas can while wearing a pink and blue stripped T-shirt.
Ford was found in his home, arrested and detained. While there, the deputy saw in plain view in Ford’s room, the pink and blue stripped shirt he appeared to be wearing in the video. It had a rip in it, according to the affidavit.
During questioning, Ford allegedly said that the pickup owner had ripped him off and some individuals made Ford “get him back.” Ford took the deputy to a dumpster where he observed a red gas can that Ford had allegedly used in the arson of the vehicle.
While booking Ford into the Beckham County Detention Center, he allegedly confessed that he’d bought the gasoline, poured a trail on the ground leading to the vehicle, soaking the inside of the cab and a sock with gasoline and lighting it. He threw the sock onto the gas trail that caused a chain reaction that engulfed the truck, destroying it.
Ford pled guilty a year ago in Beckham County District Court to a controlled, dangerous possession charge, and received a deferred sentence and has been on probation.
Ford is due in court for a preliminary hearing conference on September 19 in front of Judge Michelle Roper.
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