PARKERSBURG, WV (LOOTPRESS) – A Parkersburg arsonist couldn’t seem to catch a break Sunday as he was arrested for breaking into multiple local businesses and setting fire to a barber shop.
The Parkersburg Police Department reports having arrested Clifford P. Nations II – 29 years old of Vienna – on Sunday, April 16, 2023. Nations faces two counts of Breaking and Entering and one count of Second Degree Arson resulting from events which occurred the morning of Thursday, April 13, 2023.
Officers were dispatched to the location of the Shirt Factory & Sporting Goods Inc at Dupont Road following a 911 call reporting the front door of the establishment to have been wide open.
Responding officers discovered that the glass of the door had been broken, and subsequently discovered Nations inside the building hiding from police where he would be arrested.
Only minutes prior to the arrest, the Parkersburg Fire Department and Parkersburg Police Officers had been dispatched to the location of Ray’s Barber Shop on Division Street with regard to a structure fire.
The fire was extinguished by first responders, and an investigation conducted by the Uniform Division Officers and the Detective Bureau revealed evidence linking Nations to this incident as well. Notably, the glass at the establishment had been broken prior to the start of the blaze in a similar fashion to that of the Shirt Factory & Sporting Goods Inc location.
Nations was arraigned by a Wood County Magistrate and his bond was set at $300,000. The subject failed to post bond and has been reprimanded to the custody of the West Virginia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations.