Hepburn Township man charged with setting fire at motorcycle club
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Apparently "upset over many issues," a Hepburn Township man has admitted to breaking into the Road Knights Motorcycle Club and using a lighter to set the one-story building on Heleeka Road on fire earlier this month, according to Old Lycoming Township Police Chief Joseph Hope.
Lycoming County Prison inmate Damon Millington, 41, 6667 Lycoming Creek Road, was taken from the jail Thursday afternoon to face charges of arson, felony trespassing and related offenses for allegedly setting the blaze that broke out about 11 p.m. on Feb. 9.
The fire at 365 Heleeka Road in Hepburn Township destroyed a building that housed a club that had recently been struggling to maintain members, Hope said.
"The structure was almost completely consumed by the fire," Hope said in an affidavit.
Millington, jailed on a county probation violation since Feb. 20, had no association with the club, Hope said.
In a prison interview Tuesday with Hope, Millington admitted that on the night of the fire, he broke a door window at the club to enter the building.
"He took several small bottles of liquor as mementos to give to his girlfriend, Kortney Howard, and used a lighter he found on the club's bar to set the curtains on fire," Hope said Millington told him in the interview.
Millington went on to tell Hope that, shortly after the blaze, he told Howard that he set a fire inside the motorcycle club. Days later, Howard told her boyfriend that she "went by the burned out building, and this (really) upset him," Hope said the prison inmate told him.
Millington also told Hope that he was so upset with Howard that he "grabbed her by the throat" to the point that she was unable to breathe, according to the affidavit.
He admitted that he told Howard that "he would never let her go, and that she knew too much. Millington eventually released his grip and Howard left Millington's apartment to seek safety from Millington after he left for work the next morning," Hope said.
At the time of the prison interview, Hope was already well aware that Millington had allegedly assaulted Howard.
Millington became a suspect in the case on Feb. 20, the same day he was incarcerated, when a "confidential source" came to the Old Lycoming Township police station "to report Millington's (alleged) involvement in the suspicious fire at the club," Hope said.
The source "expressed fear for Howard's safety," explaining that Millington had allegedly "assaulted and choked Howard recently all because Howard had knowledge of his involvement in setting the fire at the motorcycle club," Hope said.
The source told Hope that Howard told the source that Millington allegedly "threatened to kill her because she 'knew too much,'" according to the affidavit.
On the same day that the source came to the police station, a relative of Howard's also came to the station to report that he had been at Howard's home in Gamble Township the night before, Feb. 19, and overheard several minutes of a telephone conversation between Howard and Millington.
During the conversation, which was on speaker phone, "Millington threatened Howard, telling her she was 'the only one person that knew anything about it.' Millington was yelling at Howard, accusing her of going out to a bar and telling people about him setting the fire. Millington said he was scared and that he would kill Howard if he had to because he didn't want to go to jail for seven to 10 years for arson," Howard's relative told investigators.
In addition to arson and felony trespassing, Millington was charged with burglary, theft, receiving stolen property, causing or risking a catastrophe, criminal mischief, strangulation, intimidation of a witness and convicted felon not to possess a firearm.
Convicted of felony trespassing, investigators found a rifle in a closet in Millington's apartment when they executed a search warrant at his apartment on Feb. 21.
Following his arraignment before District Judge William Solomon, Millington was recommitted to the prison after Solomon denied bail in the case.