The Dade County Sheriff's Department has arrested David Livesay of Trenton for arson and insurance fraud in the burning of a house belonging to his wife. Livesay was booked on Feb. 2 and is being held at the Dade jail.
Sheriff's Department Investigator Don Hicks explained that this is an old case, that the house burned about a year or more ago but that the district attorney's office had had Livesay evaluated and deemed him incompetent at that point to stand trial. Since then, Livesay had been residing in Tennessee. Now he's been extradited back to Georgia and judged competent to stand trial, said Hicks, so that the arson case can go forward.
Hicks said Dade volunteer firefighters have a pretty good nose for arson but that his departments routinely investigates all fires, including wildfires such as the ones that swept Dade in the late fall.
"We look at every structure fire in the county," he said.
Hicks did not mention any specific other fires the department was looking into. He did promise news, though, of the three simultaneous Jan. 23 Sand Mountain fires when such becomes available.
He said that fraud charges automatically ensue when a person has started a fire deliberately and accepts the first dollar of insurance money.
"That's another form of theft," said Hicks.
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