Setting a Fire and Presenting a Claim for Items Not Burned is Insurance Fraud & Arson

Sherry Lee Lance appealed her convictions for second degree arson, conspiracy to commit second degree arson, and insurance fraud, all stemming from allegations that Lance conspired with her mother to burn down the home they shared and collect insurance proceeds. In State Of North Carolina, v. Sherry Lee Lance, 2021 NCCOA 236, No. COA20-273, Court Of Appeals Of North Carolina (June 1, 2021) Lance’s central argument is that the State could not prove an essential element of the arson charges—that Lance burned the dwelling house of another—because the only other inhabitant of the home was her mother, who allegedly conspired with her to burn the home. The State’s evidence showed that Lance’s mother still lived in the home when the fire occurred, and there was no evidence that Lance’s mother knew when or how the fire would be set.

FACTS

In September 2016, a house in Fletcher was destroyed by a fire. At the time of the fire, Defendant Sherry Lance and her mother Jonnie Turner lived in the house. They had leased it from the owner for about two years.

After the fire, Fletcher Police Sergeant Ronald Diaz, the town fire chief, the fire marshal, and an SBI agent went to the property to investigate. The SBI agent brought a canine trained to identify accelerants or incendiaries, but the canine did not alert to any.

There was a large hole in the kitchen floor area that the investigators believed was the origin point of the fire a location with no electrical facilities. Sergeant Diaz observed that there was an unusually low number of personal belongings in the home and “not what you would expect in a home that was just lost to a fire.” Sergeant Diaz learned that Lance had obtained a renter’s insurance policy in May 2016, about four months prior to the fire, and had filed a claim for items lost in the fire.

Casey Silvers, a fire investigator hired by the insurance company to investigate the cause of the fire, went to the property to investigate along with a claims adjuster. The claims adjuster also met with Lance to take her recorded statement about the fire. In her recorded statement, Lance explained that she told the landlord about some electrical problems in the home but he would not fix them. Lance explained that she thought the fire was electrical. When asked where she was and what she did on the day of the fire, Lance stated that she had gone “dumpster diving” with her mother, taking their two dogs with them. Lance submitted a “loss inventory list” to the adjuster, listing the items of personal property that she claimed were lost in the fire.

Several months later Sergeant Diaz discovered that Turner had rented a storage unit the day before the fire. After obtaining a search warrant, Sergeant Diaz searched the unit and found a large number of personal belongings and household items, as well as personal financial and legal documents belonging to Lance. Various items that Sergeant Diaz found in the storage unit matched items listed on the loss inventory form Lance submitted to her insurance company. Sergeant Diaz obtained video footage from the storage facility, which showed Lance and Turner accessing the storage unit the day before the fire, moving items into the unit, and later moving items out of the unit after the fire.

The State charged Lance with second degree arson, conspiracy to commit second degree arson, and insurance fraud. The State also presented evidence that Lance made incriminating statements to family members following the fire.

The jury convicted Lance of all three charges. The trial court consolidated the charges and sentenced Lance to a term of 10 to 21 months in prison.

ANALYSIS

Arson is the wilful and malicious burning of the dwelling house of another person. The essential elements of second-degree arson are:

• the willful and malicious burning
• of the dwelling (i.e., inhabited) house of another;
• which is unoccupied at the time of the burning.

The North Carolina Supreme Court has held that the “arson requirement that the dwelling burned be that of ‘another’ is satisfied by a showing that some other person or persons, together with the defendant, were joint occupants of the same dwelling unit.” State v. Shaw, 305 N.C. 327, 338, 289 S.E.2d 325, 331 (1982).

Lance’s mother lived in the home at the time it was burned. There was a risk that Turner could have been in the home at the time it was burned, even assuming Turner participated in the plan to set the fire.

Knowledge of, or participation in, a plan to commit arson does not remove the danger that the other person could be injured or killed when the burning occurs. In fact, especially with the inexperienced arsonist, someone will be injured or die, including the arsonist herself or any co-conspirators. The State’s evidence established that Turner was a person living in that dwelling who could have been in the home at the time it was burned, and that is all that is required to satisfy this element of the arson offenses in this case.

The trial court heard extensive voir dire testimony from the fire cause and origin expert, Silvers. Silvers testified that he works as a senior fire investigator with a fire investigation firm, where he conducts origin and cause investigations for fires, using the scientific method to determine causation. Silvers’s extensive voir dire testimony covered all three prongs of the Rule 702 reliability test, describing in detail the facts and data he collected in conducting his investigation, the principles and methods he applied in accordance with his training and the guidelines for his profession, and the way he applied those principles and methods to the facts of this case to reach his conclusion that he could not exclude an incendiary cause.

The State’s evidence showed that, following the fire, Lance met with an insurance adjuster to provide a recorded statement for her renter’s insurance claim in which she told the adjuster she thought the fire was “electrical” and provided an inventory of personal property she claimed was destroyed in the fire. The State contended that these statements were false and that Lance set the fire.

Viewed in context, these statements all fell within the scope of the specific misrepresentation alleged in the indictment that her property was destroyed by an accidental fire. The court concluded that there was no error in the trial court’s judgment,

ZALMA OPINION

Arson for profit is an evil variation on the crime of insurance fraud. People are often injured or killed in arson fires. Incompetent arsonists like Ms. Lance set fires in places that have no legitimate, or even potential, areas where a fire might accidentally start and takes out all of the valuable contents and places them in storage before the fire so that a claim can be made for items not destroyed and the arsonist can keep the money and still have the property. She was convicted because the criminal activity was obvious, the potential for death or injury to her mother, fire fighters, neighbors or the owner of the dwelling she was renting, could have been injured. Her stay in the gray bar hotel is deserved.