Thomas Anthony Sweatt was a restaurant manager from Washington, D.C. who admitted in 2005 to setting 45 fires at homes in the District and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Two of the fires, in February 2002 and June 2003, ended in the deaths of two elderly women in Northeast Washington. He pleaded guilty to two murders in a federal court in Maryland and was sentenced to life in prison plus 136 years.
His record has a second part. In 2018, 33 years after a fire in Northwest Washington, D.C. police and the Office of the Medical Examiner reclassified the deaths of a husband and wife from accidental to homicide, after Sweatt had told a reporter in letters that he set that fire. He has never been charged in those deaths.
Sweatt was born about 1955; he was 50 when he pleaded guilty in June 2005. He came from a large family with several brothers and a sister, and a mother who visited him. In 1976, at 21, he tried to enlist in the Navy and passed the aptitude test but failed the physical. In 1984 he was arrested in Washington on an allegation that he had stolen about $2,500 worth of jewelry from a man he had met at a party. He agreed to a court-ordered diversion program, and the government dropped the case.
He worked in restaurants. In January 1985 he was a fry cook on the late shift at a fast-food restaurant in the District. In 1992 he settled in Southeast Washington, and in 1993 he joined a fast-food restaurant in Northeast Washington, where he stayed for about 12 years and rose from cook to unit manager. At the time of his arrest in 2005 he was a fast-food restaurant manager. He also worked with his sister on home renovation.
The earliest deaths attributed to him came in 1985. On January 11, 1985, a fire broke out in Northwest Washington. Bessie Mae Duncan, 42, died in January. Her husband, Roy Picott, 40, died on March 5, 1985, less than two months later. The fire was officially ruled accidental. The couple's children disputed that finding, and one of the daughters came to believe over the years that the fire had been set deliberately.
For more than 20 years the family did not know who was responsible. In late 2006 Sweatt admitted setting the fire in a letter to a reporter at Washington City Paper. When the reporter traced the couple's surviving children in 2007, they said that they had never known who it was. One of the sons told the reporter that he did not want to know Sweatt's reasons.
This fire was not part of the 2005 plea, and no court has ruled on it.
Annie Brown was 89 when she died on February 14, 2002, after a fire in Northeast Washington that had been reported on February 5. The manner of her death was ruled a homicide. Investigators did not connect the 2002 fire with the later series when it happened; Sweatt came under suspicion for it later, and he admitted to it. The 45 fires in the plea ran from February 2003, so Annie Brown's death falls before the dates of the series, but her case was dealt with alongside the others.
Lou Edna Jones was 86. She died after a fire in Northeast Washington on June 5, 2003, and the manner of her death was ruled a homicide. At the sentencing in 2005 her son spoke of the loss.
By spring 2003, fire officials from the District and Prince George's County had begun comparing notes on a run of similar fires near their shared border, and by mid-July investigators were examining about two dozen recent fires.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) led a task force of police and fire departments from Washington and neighboring communities in Maryland and Virginia. The ATF's National Laboratory Center concluded early that one person was probably responsible for 14 of the first fires in 2003, and the task force went on to link 50 fires to a single arsonist. The effort was known as the Serial Arson Task Force, and its agencies were the ATF; District of Columbia Fire/EMS; the Metropolitan Police Department; Prince George's County Fire/EMS and Police; the Maryland State Fire Marshal and State Police; Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services; Fairfax County Fire and Rescue; Anne Arundel County Fire; the Alexandria Fire Department; the Howard County Police Department; and the Baltimore City Fire Department.
The task force was led by an ATF special agent in charge, Theresa Stoop. The investigation lasted nearly two years and, as the fires spread, took in the District, Prince George's and Montgomery Counties in Maryland, and Fairfax County, Alexandria and Arlington in Virginia. At times as many as 55 agents were on the case.
The 45 fires covered by the plea ran from February 2003 to December 2004. By place, they were 21 in the District, 17 in Prince George's County, three in Fairfax County, two in Montgomery County, and one each in Arlington County and Alexandria. They included fires in Washington in the first months of 2003, in Alexandria in November 2003, in Silver Spring in February 2004, in Oxon Hill in April 2004 and in Arlington in December 2004. Only Annie Brown and Lou Edna Jones died.
DNA evidence linked Sweatt to several of the fires. On April 27, 2005, he was arrested in Maryland. A five-count federal criminal complaint was filed that day in U.S. District Court; its counts concerned fires in Washington in September and October 2003. At a press conference at the federal courthouse in Washington, officials said that formal charges and an indictment would follow.
Sweatt then admitted to the fires. Investigators went on to clear a total of 353 fires with his help, going back to the 1980s, and he admitted to ATF agents responsibility for about 300 more fires than the 45 to which he pleaded. None of those was charged.
On June 6, 2005, Sweatt appeared before Judge Deborah K. Chasanow of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, in Greenbelt, and pleaded guilty. Criminal informations originally filed in the District of Columbia and the Eastern District of Virginia had been transferred to Maryland so that the whole series could be dealt with in one court. The counts were destruction of buildings by fire resulting in personal injury; related federal offences under the weapons and explosives laws, including two counts tied to a crime of violence; and, in the D.C. information, first degree premeditated murder (felony murder) and second degree murder. Because he pleaded to the two counts tied to a crime of violence, he faced a mandatory life sentence. Which murder count belongs to which victim is not on record. Under a plea agreement, local prosecutors agreed not to charge him with other arsons.
Three United States Attorneys commented. Allen F. Loucks of Maryland called the plea a milestone in a two-year investigation and said Sweatt would spend the rest of his life behind bars. Kenneth L. Wainstein of the District of Columbia said Sweatt had terrorized the community for more than two years. Theresa Stoop of the ATF said she hoped the plea would let victims move forward and heal, and she offered condolences to the families of Lou Edna Jones and Annie Brown.
Sweatt was sentenced on Monday, September 12, 2005, at Greenbelt, to life in prison plus 136 years. There is no parole in the federal system. The breakdown by count is not on record.
Judge Chasanow said that mental health problems could not excuse what he had done and that he had terrorized the community. Wainstein called the sentence a fitting punishment and a fitting conclusion to the case. Sweatt addressed the court. "To the victims and the victims' families, I'm very sorry for all the harm I've caused you," he said. A reason for the fires was not given at the hearing; people who had lost homes said that they did not understand why he had done it.
The judge also ordered him to reimburse victims for costs that insurance had not covered, and warned that they were unlikely to collect. At the time of the sentencing he was held in Maryland, and federal prison officials were to decide where he was sent.
A week after the sentencing, officials described changes the case had produced: better organization of case files and vetting of leads, easier driver's-license checks between Maryland, Virginia and the District, and databases in each jurisdiction that were easier to search.
After sentencing he was sent to a federal prison in Indiana, where he was still held in March 2018. In the winter of 2006 to 2007, prison staff placed him on restricted correspondence, and he declined to meet the City Paper reporter.
On March 5, 2018, D.C. police said that the deaths of Bessie Mae Duncan and Roy Picott in the 1985 fire were now ruled homicides. A police investigation had led to "the Office of the Medical Examiner changing the manner of death for Duncan and Picott to homicides." The next day the fire was described as "now being investigated as a homicide," with D.C. police leading the new investigation and Sweatt, already in prison, identified as a suspect. No charge in the 1985 deaths is on record.
The 1985 deaths are an admission and an official reclassification, not a conviction. Sweatt's admission is recorded in letters to a reporter, not in a court. The cause originally given for the 1985 fire was accidental, and no court has made a finding to replace it.
The totals differ. The plea covered 45 fires; 353 fires were cleared with his help; he admitted to ATF agents about 300 more than the 45. None of the additional fires was charged. A reason for the fires is not on record.
About 1955: Thomas Anthony Sweatt is born.
1976: tries to enlist in the Navy; fails the physical.
1984: arrested on a jewelry theft allegation; the case is dropped after diversion.
January 11, 1985: fire in Northwest Washington; Bessie Mae Duncan dies in January and Roy Picott on March 5, 1985.
1992 to 1993: settles in Southeast Washington; begins work at a fast-food restaurant in Northeast Washington.
February 5 and 14, 2002: fire in Northeast Washington; Annie Brown dies on February 14.
February 2003: the 45-fire series begins.
June 5, 2003: Lou Edna Jones dies after a fire in Northeast Washington.
July 2003: ATF and local police begin a task force investigation lasting nearly two years.
December 2004: the series of 45 fires ends.
April 27, 2005: arrested in Maryland on a five-count federal complaint.
June 6, 2005: pleads guilty before Judge Chasanow, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
September 12, 2005: sentenced to life plus 136 years.
Late 2006: tells a reporter in a letter that he set the 1985 fire.
March 2018: D.C. police and the Office of the Medical Examiner reclassify the 1985 deaths as homicides; no charge.