Man Convicted Of 2015 Arson Of South Nashville's Infamous Harding Inn

NASHVILLE, TN — It took just 45 minutes for a jury to convict a Nashville man for a vicious 2015 arson at an abandoned South Nashville hotel.

Antoine Dewayne Clark, 31, faces between 25 and 40 years in prison after his conviction for aggravated arson and will serve 100 percent of the sentence. In 2015, Clark set fire to a stack of mattresses outside of a hotel room at the then-abandoned Harding Inn on Harding Pike near Interstate 24. Six people, including a pregnant woman, were trapped inside and rescued by Nashville Fire Department firefighters. The pregnant woman and another person were briefly hospitalized.

The victims saw Clark flee the building, saying he hoped they all burned to death. Clark apparently started the fire as revenge for some kind of dispute over money with one of the six people in the room.

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The Harding Inn was shuttered at the time after an injunction closed it down due to numerous safety violation complaints and 276 police visits to the hotel between May 2009 and May 2010, primarily on drug dealing and prostitution complaints, the latter primarily circulating around a pimp named "C-Who" who allegedly ran a ring of more than 20 prostitutes at the hotel. Despite it being closed, the Harding Inn remained relatively full with squatters and transients until the fire.

Image via Nashville Fire Department.