ST. CHARLES • A man free from jail on bail in a domestic assault case in rural Missouri broke in to his father and stepmother’s home in St. Charles to start fires there on Christmas Eve, authorities say.

Timothy M. Kloeppel, 38, was charged Thursday with burglary and arson in St. Charles County Circuit Court.

Kloeppel’s parents awoke about 2 a.m. Monday to their fire alarm and discovered a fire burning inside the piano in their family room, charges say. They put out the fire at their home in the 2900 block of Concordia Lane in St. Charles. At 7:45 a.m., they found another fire burning, this time in their car in their garage. The garage’s rear door had been secured with a ratchet strap to keep it closed.

“The victims believed that their estranged son, Timothy Kloeppel, was responsible for the fires due to having a turbulent relationship with him recently,” St. Charles Detective Donald Stepp wrote in court documents.

When questioned by police, Kloeppel admitted starting the garage fire by igniting magazines with a lighter to send “a message to his stepmother to ‘stop building fires’ between him and his father.”