By Denise Lana,
Testimony began Wednesday, Nov. 13 in the Mindy Jones arson trial in Allamakee County with testimony given by Jese Lewey, 20. Lewey is the person who found the fire February 13, 2022 and called 911. Lewey is pictured as he shows the court the area near the Tin Rust and Harmony store sales counter where he saw the start of the fire which would eventually consume the business and destroy the multi-level building, both owned by Jones. (Photo by Denise Lana)
A jury found Mindy Jones guilty of first-degree arson the afternoon of Tuesday, Nov. 19. Due to press deadlines, an update on this week’s verdict will appear in the Nov. 28 edition of the Decorah Leader.
Testimony began Wednesday, Nov. 13 in the trial of Mindy Jones, who is facing charges of first degree arson and animal abuse in connection with a February 2022 in Waukon.
The building’s first floor was home to Tin Rust and Harmony, Jones’ home decor and t-shirt business. Residential apartments were located on the second level. The fire destroyed the building, displaced the residents and resulted in the death of a dog.
In his opening statement Tuesday, prosecuting attorney Anthony Gericke told jurors Jones torched her building for one reason — the money. Prosecutors pointed to a $900,000 State Farm Insurance policy Jones had taken out on the building 58 days before it burned.
He argued Jones’ business was failing and could not generate enough income to cover Jones’ growing debt.
“Mindy Jones was financially shattered and overdrawn at the bank, her mortgage was upside down at the bank. Paychecks and rent checks are bouncing,” Gericke told the court. “She turned to the only thing of value she has left — the building she bought the insurance policy on two months earlier.”
Jones had purchased the commercial building for $62,000 in December of 2021 and secured a mortgage —including a line of credit — totaling more than $181,000. Jones soon listed the building for sale, and she received an offer for $75,000 the week prior to the fire. However, officials with FreedomBank testified they met with Jones two days before the fire and could not entertain the $75,000 offer, saying Jones would still have owed more than $100,000 on the mortgage. The day prior to the fire, Jones was also served notice and demand to pay $32,000 to local artist Marsha Angell for inventory, bounced checks and an unpaid business loan.
Jones’ Waukon business burned the evening of Feb. 13, 2022.
Her cousin Jese Lewey discovered the fire shortly before 6:30 p.m. that day, according to his testimony. Lewey had asked Jones if he would store several bins of hunting and fishing gear in the store’s basement. Jones was half-a-block away at Goodfellas Party Bar when Lewey called to say he was having trouble with the door. Jones unlocked the store’s rear entrance, but Lewey testified Jones didn’t stick around long. He said he spent less than a minute in the basement and didn’t see Jones when he returned to the first floor — but he did notice a flickering on the wall near the cash register and counter.
“I looked over the back of the counter, and I saw a fire,” Lewey said. “It was underneath the counter. I can’t pinpoint exactly what was burning, but I want to say it was paper.”
He exited the building and called both Jones and 911.
The Waukon Fire Department was on the scene with 30 firefighters within minutes.
“We arrived in full turnout gear — the guys were as well armed as they could get,” Waukon Fire Chief Dave Martin said. “At first we had two guys enter, but those two retreated due to extensive heat and lack of visibility.”
Waukon firefighters called for mutual aid from four other area fire departments, due to the fire’s intensity, the building’s height and its proximity to other downtown structures.
Waukon FD soon received mutual aid from four area fire departments due to the overwhelming intensity of the fire combined with the height of the buildings and their proximity to one another.
The court also heard from 27-year-old Devinn Hill, who lived in an upper level apartment adjacent to Jones’ building. He testified he was unaware the neighboring building was on fire until smoke began to roll under his apartment door — he grabbed his pets and escaped in his stocking feet, he said.
“I could see flames, and the nails in the stairs were hot,” Hill said. “I was scared.”
He said the windows of Jones’ building exploded just as he and a friend were gathering near Allamakee Street.
“Glass went all over the concrete,” Hill said. “I was 3 feet or so — a door width — away. It was hot, and glass shot as wide as Allamakee sidewalks. It blew glass into the side of a van.”
Special Agent Ross Dillavou, an arson investigator with the Iowa Departgment of Public Safety, said the exploding windows were key to understanding the strength, speed and temperature of the fire inside the building at the time.
“Glass goes through a chemical change in a fire,” he said. “For a room the size of Jones’ store to fill up with enough heat to create enough pressure for that glass to fail and explode outward, it would have to be more than just a fire caused by pieces of paper, in my expert opinion.”
Firefighters continued to battle the fire into the next day, but the flames destroyed not only Tin Rust and Harmony but an adjacent structure as well, and several other buildings in that block were damaged. The response depleted Waukon’s waters supply, prompting officials there to issue a boil advisory and call off school due to the lack of water. No human lives were lost, but a dog named Molly had been trapped in a stairwell and died from extensive smoke inhalation after she was removed from the building.
Dillavou was contacted early the morning after the blaze began — Valentine’s Day that year — to investigate alongside a number of other state and federal entities. Dillavou learned he would be working alongside members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Water from the firehoses the previous day had frozen in the single-digit temperatures, making it difficult for investigators to throughly examine the damage. Photos were taken, sketches were made, and the scene was secured behind portable fencing until the ice melted and it was deemed safe for investigators to enter nearly two months later on April 6, 2022. Dillavou said fuel or other accelerants could have evaporated during those weeks if they weren’t washed away by the fire hoses the day of the fire. None were found after investigators were able to access the site either, and fingerprints were found on an empty diesel fuel can found at the scene.
But they continued to look for clues as to how the fire had originated.
“Fire is indiscriminate — it will destroy everything, but it leaves a story behind,” Dillavou said. “There are things left over, artifacts that burned — what contributed and what did not. Fire burns hotter in certain areas than others. It leaves us a trail of evidence, and we can determine what was in that area and what happened in that area.”
Dillavou, who specializes in investigating house fires and explosives, examined the building’s fuse box, and a third-party laboratory ruled out an overloaded power strip witnesses had recalled behind the sale counter — the same area Lewey testified he initially saw the fire.
“Power cables showed damage from the fire — they were melted, components were melted, but all had survived — they were badly damaged but not completely destroyed,” Dillavou said. “If that is where the fire came from, we would have expected those to have been completely consumed.”
A burn plume-like burn pattern near a floor grate led Dillavou to examine the building’s furnace. The exterior of the furnace had been damaged by the ceiling as it collapsed during the fire, but it showed no visible signs of fire damage, according to evidence in the case. Dillavou unscrewed a panel covering the furnace coils and discovered a 5-10-inch piece of fabric on the coils — the cloth material was consistent with a shirt Jones carried at her store, according to investigators.
“It hadn’t gotten there by accident, because if it had fallen down the heat or cold air vents,” he said. “The material would have had to miraculously made a turn upwards and have been sucked into the coils and somehow managed to land perfectly between the coils and the panel, which was screwed into place.”
He testified that the cloth did not cause the blaze which destroyed the store — he said any potential fire locations would have put itself out quickly — but Dillavou said it was his belief someone likely believed it would start a fire.
“Based on examination and evidence, this fire was incendiary in nature,” Dillavou said. “Two areas in origin — behind the counter, one in the cold air return — two separate fires. Suspicious circumstance.”
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