Suspect to Livonia police: SUV was too loud, so he burned it

Matt Jachman | Hometown Life

Police say a Livonia man admitted to torching a sport-utility vehicle one night last month because, in his words, "It was way too loud."

Jonathan Bingham, 26, faces a charge of fourth-degree arson, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. Arrested shortly after the fire, Bingham waived a preliminary hearing in Livonia's 16th District Court and is to be arraigned Thursday in Wayne County Circuit Court.

He was being held Tuesday in the county jail on a $50,000 bond.

The fire, which destroyed a 1998 Ford Explorer, occurred early May 29 on Cardwell, north of Plymouth Road. No one was hurt and Livonia firefighters extinguished the blaze.

According to a Livonia Police Department report, a man was awakened by a noise outside his house on Cardwell around 2:30 a.m., went outside and saw a man pouring something on the Explorer and lighting it.

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He confronted the man, who ran north on Cardwell, police said. The witness then found a bicycle, leaning in the bushes on his property, that did not belong to him.

The Explorer was fully engulfed when a police officer arrived.

Police used a tracking dog to search for a suspect, but Bingham soon called the police station's front desk to report that his bicycle had been stolen, the report said. He said he was at Plymouth and Inkster; officers found him near a car wash on Plymouth, east of Inkster, in Redford Township.

Bingham was dressed like the arsonist described by the witness — wearing red basketball shorts and no shirt, police said.

He initially told police that he didn't know who had stolen his bike and was very angry and was trying to find the thief, police said.

Under further questioning, however, Bingham said he had set the fire. He said the Explorer travels through his neighborhood and is "extremely noisy," the police report said.

He found out where it was parked.

"I wasn't going to do nothing at first and then I got into this whole thing that popped off and then I kind of set it on fire," police quote Bingham as saying.

Asked why he set the fire, Bingham said, "It was way too loud, it was waking me up."

Questioned by a detective later, Bingham said he had been drunk earlier in the day and riding his bicycle with a man he knows as Mad Mike, who had complained about the Explorer and said he would pay someone to set it on fire.

"I was intoxicated with that idea in my head," Bingham said in a written statement, adding that he bought $2 worth of gasoline and set the Explorer on fire, the police report said.

However Capt. Ron Taig, who is in charge of the police department's investigative division, said police investigated the Mad Mike angle and could not substantiate it.

"I don't understand why I pursued burning someone property," Bingham wrote, the police report said. "I never done it before and will never do it again."

On Cavell, a block east of the fire scene, police located a plastic gas can and a mug, smelling of gasoline, like those Bingham said he had used in setting the fire.

The Explorer's owner told police he had driven the vehicle home from work and parked it in front of his house at about midnight. He said he did not know anyone matching Bingham's description.

Contact Matt Jachman at mjachman@hometownlife.com. Follow him on Twitter: @mattjachman.