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By LOU HATTER and HILARY SCHEER GERHARDT
Rappahannock News Special Writers
Fauquier Sheriff Joe Higgs announced Tuesday that the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist responsible for burning eight bams in the countyand killing five thoroughbred horses March 11 has been doubled, to $20,000.
Nearly two weeks after the arson spree, the original reward and additional money offered through CrimeSolvers and the Virginia Arson Fund have produced no information in the Marshall-The Plains area fires, Higgs said.
The Sheriffs Office has nine investigators working on the case, which Higgs said has been given “top priority.” All are working G5 to 80 hours per week, he said, parceling their time between the arsons and other assignments.
He said “four or five” possible suspects have been developed, and investigators continue to comb over clues discovered in the ashes and through their subsequent efforts.
Patrol deputies have conducted canvasses of the northern area, talking with residents and business owners about the fires. Meanwhile, checkpoints set up on roads in the area during the hours in which the fires were reported “have yielded additional information that has proved beneficial to the investigation,” the sheriff said.
He declined to be more specific about the leads.
The investigation is now’ concentrating on a painstaking analysis of thie information and evidence collected so far, Higgs said. That, plus the continued assistance Of the community, may well produce the break that will solve the case, he said.
Higgs added that, if the arsonist is also linked to a series of livestock shootings in the northwestern area of the county during the past two months, information leading to an arrest and conviction could net the informant up to $30,000 in rew’ard money.
“This type of reward money goes to show how anxious, angry . and frustrated this community is over these senseless acts,” he said.
The community is indeed angry’. Residents have been quite vocal since the fires about their outrage at the unprovoked arsons.
“No one is going to rest easy until wre find the guilty party,” said Anthony Wells, whose barn at Halfw ay
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