LEWISTON – Kenneth Earl Rideout Jr. told an inmate at the Androscoggin County Jail that he started the fire that destroyed an Auburn apartment building last week, according to a police statement released Monday.
Rideout allegedly told Robert Judd while sitting in a common area at the Auburn jail that he was “stressed and upset” about having set the fire.
The conversation between the two inmates occurred Wednesday, the day after the seven-unit apartment building at the corner of Main and Newbury streets went up in flames, police said.
Rideout was arrested on unrelated charges the night of the fire. Fire officials charged him with arson Friday after completing their investigation.
The 35-year-old Auburn man made his first appearance Monday in 8th District Court in Lewiston. He didn’t enter a plea. That will come later if he is indicted on the charge by a grand jury.
In the meantime, Rideout will remain in jail on $25,000 cash bail.
According to an affidavit by state fire marshal’s investigator Christopher Stanford, Rideout was seen getting into his Ford pickup truck and leaving the building’s dirt parking lot on the night of the fire.
One tenant told investigators that he watched Rideout and a woman drive away about three minutes before he noticed a glow in the window of the fourth-floor apartment.
After speaking with witnesses at the scene, investigators issued an alert asking local police agencies to look for Rideout’s vehicle.
The alert wasn’t needed.
According to the affidavit, a Lewiston police officer had already stopped Rideout and was in the process of charging him with operating under the influence and operating after suspension.
The woman in the passenger seat, Rebecca Miller, was taken to the Auburn Police Department to be interviewed.
Miller told investigators that she lived in the fourth-floor apartment with her husband, Clifford Miller, and that Rideout was visiting the night of the fire.
Miller said Rideout became enraged after a tenant on the third floor punched him in the face. She told investigators that he threatened to kill the tenant and burn the building down.
At some point, she said, she left the building and got into Rideout’s truck. Rideout joined her about five minutes later.
“Rebecca told us that as they got further down the road, she looked back and saw smoke coming from the neighborhood,” Stanford wrote in his affidavit. “She said that she asked Kenneth why she saw the smoke, and he replied that he set the building on fire to get back at the tenants.”
The inmate at the county jail told investigators that Rideout admitted to starting the blaze by setting fire to pieces of cardboard. The inmate also said that Rideout told him that he lied to police because he knew they could never prove that he did it.
The inmate said he contacted police because he knew that 16 people had lost their homes and he was upset over the fact that someone could have been killed.
If convicted of arson, Rideout could be sent to prison for 40 years.
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