Bensalem Man Sentenced To 12 Years For Setting Fires At MD House

BENSALEM, PA ­— A 35-year-old Bensalem man was sentenced to spend 12 years in prison this week after a Maryland judge determined that he intentionally set several fires at the Montgomery County home of a woman he didn’t know last year.

John Joseph O’Donnell told police that he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he broke into the woman’s home and set her car on fire before setting multiple fires around her home, prosecutors announced on Monday. The woman, who is not identified in court documents, was trapped in the upper level of her home along with her five cats and needed to be rescued by first responders. Prosecutors said that the damage caused by the fires kept the victim from living in her home for nearly 10 months.

Although O’Donnell did not know the woman, prosecutors said that he visited in her home in Potomac twice in Oct. 2020. O’Donnell is said to have broken out the back window of her car on Oct. 25 before he returned a day later and, according to court records, broke into the woman’s home and set fires in her basement, kitchen and living room. Investigators found a five-gallon gasoline container outside of the home, prosecutors said, and the victim told police that the person who broke into her house was yelling as if he were angry before breaking into the home.

“The defendant’s actions put the life of an innocent woman at risk and displaced her from her home for 10 months, “Maryland State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in a news release.

Investigators said that they used a parking warning issued to O’Donnell by the Philadelphia Parking Authority that included a photo of his vehicle to link O’Donnell to the crime, court documents said. The envelope with the warning was found outside the woman’s house, prosecutors said. The woman told police she did not know who O’Donnell was and had no idea why he would be outside her home.

O’Donnell’s white SUV was seen by neighbors leaving the area at a high rate of speed and his vehicle was also picked up by nearby surveillance cameras. He was arrested at his home in Bensalem two days later.

In an interview with police, O’Donnell told investigators that he visited the victim’s house twice and that he was angry with the head of the CIA after he claimed his personal life had been hacked by Russian intelligence agents. He said that he had battled drug addiction for several years, court documents said, and that in the previous 4-5 months before the incident, he had spent $45,000 on drugs and bills.

O’Donnell said that he believed the CIA official lived at the address and that he intended to kill whoever lived there, documents show. He told police that he “knew it was wrong, but would do it all over again right now, if on drugs or not.”

He added: “I feel bad… it’s some lady’s house. That’s horrible, no one was in there, I didn’t see anyone. She must have been scared to death. I feel horrible now. Can you imagine if I would have saw her?”