Published: Friday, October 6, 2006
Haunted by cows' moans, arsonist pleads guilty
The arsonist took investigators to crime scenes, showing them his work.
By TIM YOVICH
WARREN — A Leavittsburg arsonist who surrendered to authorities because he continued to hear the moans of cows in his mind after he'd torched a large dairy farm was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Roddy M. Rudkin Jr., 22, of Briggs Road, pleaded guilty Thursday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to 24 charges, including four counts of aggravated arson. The other charges were vandalism, breaking and entering, injuring animals, and burglary.
Judge Peter J. Kontos immediately sentenced him to the 12-year prison term.
One of the farm fires Rudkin admitted setting destroyed two barns and killed 52 cows at the David Klingensmith dairy farm June 24, 2005, on Nelson Mosier Road in Leavittsburg.
David Klingensmith placed the loss at $500,000.
Chuck Morrow, an assistant county prosecutor, said the Klingensmith farm had some of the best milk-producing dairy cows in the state.
Another barn fire was started May 17, 2005, at 5800 Park Road in Warren Township that killed 12 horses and a donkey and resulted in more than $100,000 damage.
Morrow said that Rudkin turned himself in because the moans of the cows as they died bothered him.
The investigation was conducted by the Warren Fire Department and Trumbull County Fire Investigative Unit.
House arsons
Rudkin also pleaded guilty to setting three vacant-house fires in Warren on Nov. 10, 12 and 27; three occupied-house fires July 4 on Bane Street in Warren Township; and another occupied-house fire July 5 on Tod Avenue, Warren Township.
"We have gotten an arson bug off the streets," Morrow said.
He explained that once Rudkin surrendered, he took arson investigators to locations where he set fires and was able to give them details of what happened.
"He cooperated to some extent," Morrow added.
Impact statement
Before Rudkin was sentenced, Klingensmith gave a victim impact statement.
Klingensmith told Judge Kontos that he still isn't making the money he did before the fire, and outside of his family, his cows were the most important thing to him.
He said the cows were "tortured" and some exploded from the heat. Other were hanged because they were tied up at the time.
"They died a slow death," he explained.
More Stories from Mon, Oct 9, 2006
from vindyJOBS.com
