Md. Arson Suspect: It Wasn't Me

Authorities say a security guard at an upscale housing development was arrested Thursday on arson charges in a series of fires that did $10 million in damage to homes being built at the subdivision.

Aaron L. Speed, 21, will appear Friday in federal court, the U.S. attorney's office said in a statement.

No motive was immediately known and a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office said she did not know how many arson charges Speed faced.

Speed is an employee of Security Services of America, a company hired to guard the development in Indian Head, Maryland, some 35 miles south of the nation's capital.

"They have the wrong man," he told WUSA-TV Thursday shortly before his arrest. "Everything that I'm doing, I'm doing willingly to prove to them that I am innocent. I'm taking a polygraph today that'll show them that I'm innocent."

It could not be learned if a polygraph test was administered to Speed.

No one was hurt in the Dec. 6 fires, but a total of 26 houses were damaged, 10 of them severely, in what authorities say is the largest residential arson case in Maryland history.

Because of the size of the 10-acre crime scene, authorities believe at least two people set the fires.

Investigators also say there is evidence that the arsonists tried to set 10 more blazes at the subdivision.

Early speculation was that the fires were set by environmentalists who believed the houses were a threat to a nearby bog. Police say now that no evidence has been found to support that theory.

Linda Auwers, general counsel for the parent company of Security Services of America, said authorities asked the company not to comment. "We are fully cooperating with the authorities in their investigation of this matter," she said.

Authorities searched the home of Speed's parents on Wednesday night and towed a car away, said David Jaillet, whose stepdaughter is married to Speed. No one answered the door Thursday night at the house, which has a homemade "No Trespassing" sign taped to the door.

Speed has suffered through several difficult family situations, including the death of a baby son this year and his own placement about 18 months ago in a foster home by an organization specializing in mental health treatment.

Jaillet said his stepdaughter and Speed married about a year ago and had twin boys earlier this year, but one of the boys died of intestinal complications.

Speed is a "decent person," Jaillet said. Asked if he thought Speed was involved in the fires, Jaillet said: "No, I don't think he is; it's not in his character."

Jaillet said Speed has worked as a security guard for about a year and is a supervisor at the Hunters Brooke site.

The Washington Post reported last week that Speed had told the newspaper that he saw a blue van at the Hunters Brooke development the morning of the fires. He said he was visiting the guard on duty at the time. Speed told the paper that he could only see a driver and wasn't sure whether anyone else was in the van.

"It basically looked like they were trying to watch," he told the newspaper, referring to the van. "I saw it lingering around. ... It kept passing by the construction site entrance."

Firefighters also reported seeing the van - as it left the scene of the fires.

By Brian Witte