A 30-year-old Minnesota man has been charged with arson in connection with an October 19 RV fire in East Dallas that killed 68-year-old Leslie Denise McBride (Morrow) and her dog.
Lamont Curtis Richardson was taken into custody on Friday afternoon on Interstate 94 in Minnesota by the U.S. Marshals Service. He was booked into the Stearns County Jail on a charge of arson of a habitation.
Dallas police announced the arrest on November 7, nearly three weeks after firefighters responded at 6:21 a.m. to heavy flames engulfing an RV parked beside a home in the 10300 block of Eastwood Drive.
Crews extinguished the blaze and found McBride’s body inside the destroyed RV. The fire also damaged the adjacent single-story house, but two residents escaped unharmed.
Investigators declared the case a homicide on October 22 after reviewing alley surveillance video that showed a man exiting a car with something in his hand and approaching the RV moments before flames erupted.
The vehicle in the video was traced to a woman from Apple Valley, Minnesota, according to court records, as reported by The Minnesota Star Tribune. Nine days after the fire, Apple Valley police executed a search warrant at the unnamed woman’s home. They seized documents and a cell phone with a blue Dallas Cowboys protective case that contained information linking her to Richardson.
According to a court filing, the woman rented the vehicle from Hertz at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport from October 3 to 22, and the car was driven nearly 1,000 miles to the East Dallas neighborhood where the fire occurred. The rental agency’s GPS tracking showed that the car returned to the Apple Valley home about 14 hours after the blaze broke out.
Neighbors said that an armed robbery had taken place at the home where the RV was parked just one day before the fire.
Police have not commented on a motive for the arson or whether the woman involved will face charges.
McBride was remembered in her obituary for her “generous heart and joyful spirit.”
“Leslie had a heart as big as her smile and was always ready to lend a hand, share a home-cooked meal, or brighten someone’s day. She never passed up the opportunity for a good laugh and was known as a hard worker who gave her all in everything she did,” the obituary read.
She worked for many years in food service at San Angelo ISD, retiring from the position.