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A man has been arrested after he drove more than 700 miles from his Michigan home to Bensalem Township, PA. Authorities say he went there to commit arson at a house where his ex-girlfriend’s new online love interest lived.
According to Bensalem police, a fire broke out at the Pennsylvania man’s house around 5:30 am on Feb. 10. Six adults fled the home, some through the second-floor windows, and were treated for injuries. According to Phillyburbs, there were two elderly people inside the home when the fire started. They both made it out through a basement exit. Two dogs died, and the house was destroyed.
The investigation revealed the fire seemed intentionally set, and a neighbor’s home security camera captured a vehicle in the area when the fire started, determined to belong to a relative of 21-year-old Harrison Jones from Rockford, MI, near Grand Rapids, about an 11-hour drive from Bensalem.
Jones’ ex also lives in Michigan, and she was expected to travel to Bensalem outside Philadelphia to meet the man whose home burned and whom she had been communicating with online the same week the alleged arson happened.
A man in a hoodie
Awakened by barking dogs, a woman inside the house later reported seeing a man wearing a hoodie outside the home early the same morning her house burned, whom she assumed was one of her sons, around the same time her home exploded. She then went back to bed, but the noises continued, and when she went back downstairs, the house was engulfed in flames. She then screamed for the other people inside the house to escape.
The footage showed the car, linked to Jones’ family through traffic cameras and automatic license plate readers, stop in front of the victims’ house. A man then emerged and dropped something in front of the house before he returned to the parked car and then to the home several times before he left. A short time later, the house exploded.
Police interviewed the family that lived in the house and survived the blaze and learned that one of them had planned to meet a woman from Michigan whom he met online that same week. She was reportedly set to be driven to meet him by whom she called a “good friend.” That “friend” was Jones, whom she had reportedly dated in high school.
Jones drove back to Michigan
Photos: A look at the Merganser Way home in Bensalem obliterated in an arson fire https://t.co/yV9hJHKBNb
— Bucks County Courier Times (@TheIntellNews) February 17, 2025
Jones had returned to Michigan when he was arrested, and is currently set to be extradited to Pennsylvania to face charges including attempted murder and arson. Jones denied his involvement in the fire.
However, notified by Bensalem authorities, Rockford police searched Jones’ Michigan home. They found the car determined to be the same vehicle in the home surveillance footage with lock-picking devices, a computer, and a cell phone still inside it. Authorities also said Jones had what appeared to be burn marks on his arms. Burn treatment medical supplies were also found in Jones’ bedroom.
“This is a family’s worst nightmare to be asleep in their home, not knowing a stranger broke into their home and attempted to take their lives by setting their home on fire,” Bucks County District Attorney Jen Schorn said at a press conference referring to the case. “This defendant’s actions are incomprehensible.”
“They have literally mapped this defendant’s movements from his hometown in Michigan to the scene of the crime and back,” Schorn said of the evidence against Jones. “They’ve given us the tools we need to make sure this defendant is prosecuted to the fullest extent,” she said.