Joshua Thomas Hensley

WARSAW — Two counts of arson were filed against Joshua Thomas Hensley, 19, 3100 Frontage Road, Warsaw, Wednesday, Dec. 23, in Kosciusko County Superior Court 3. One count is a level 4 felony and the second count is a level 6 felony.

Warsaw Police Officer Lewis Fuller filed the affidavit of probable cause with the courts.

According to documents on Dec. 23, Warsaw Police Officer Steven Rockey responded to a fire at Valley Forge Apartments and met with Warsaw/Wayne Township Fire Inspector Joe Fretz. Fretz advised the department had been called to the laundry building and upon arrival firefighters found a clothes dryer on fire. The fire had damaged dryers on each side of the dryer on fire and smoke damage inside the laundry room. The fire was extinguished and the dryers removed.

Fretz was sent back to the apartments as someone had attempted to set a fire in a clothes dryer on the northeast wall of the room, but the fire had not burned. That dryer had scorch marks, but no other damage.

On Dec. 24 the fire department responded to a trash dumpster on fire at the apartments. Firefighters arrived to find the dumpsters on fire and it was extinguished.

Fuller went to the apartments and observed an individual who appeared suspicious. That individual, identified as Hensley, was sitting watching the fire department. Hensley allegedly admitted to Fuller he went to the laundry room on Dec. 23 and placed magazines in a dryer and lit the items on fire. He stated after the fire department put out the fire, he went back into the laundry room and placed magazines into another dryer and lit that on fire. He also admitted he used a lighter to light the trash dumpster on fire.

Hensley told police he lit the fires to intentionally cause the fires.

Through additional investigation it was learned Hensley has an active criminal case of residential entry, still pending in Kosciusko County Superior Court 1, filed in December 2014.

Damage to the dryers and smoke damage to the laundry room was approximately $60,000.