SC man who burned cemetery cross, desecrated graves, gets more charges, police say
An Upstate man who went on an arson spree in January faces additional charges, according to police.
Police charged Darren Christopher Fowler, 37, with desecration of human burial grounds after they connected him with a series of fires at a Chesnee, South Carolina, cemetery, according to jail records and media reports.
Authorities first arrested Fowler in January and charged him with arson after a witness saw him light hay bails on fire, Fox Carolina reported.
Police began to look into Fowler as the possible culprit in a series of fires at Springhill Memorial Gardens in Chesnee that happened in January, according to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. On Jan. 22 flowers and vases on graves were set on fire. The next week, a large trashcan was found ablaze at the cemetery. Two days later, the base of a wooden cross that stood for almost 40 years was burned. The cross remained standing through the fire, though a hole seared through the base.
On Wednesday, authorities charged Fowler with three counts of arson in connection with those burnings, Spartanburg County jail records showed.
Police also believed Fowler was connected with two more fires. In one case, a recliner and trash can were set on fire behind a Chesnee restaurant. In another incident, paper was stuffed and lit on fire inside the cockpit of a non-functioning helicopter in front of an American Legion. Police have not filed charges in those fires.
So far, law enforcement charged Fowler with three counts of third degree arson, a count of second degree arson and desecration of the cemetery. He faces the possibility of 15 years of imprisonment for each third degree charge and 25 years for the second degree charge. Desecration carries a possible penalty from one to 10 years in prison as well as fines.
At Fowler’s first bond hearing in January, he cursed the judge when the head of the court refused to grant Fowler’s request to get out of prison without having to pay a bond, Fox Carolina reported. The judge charged Fowler with contempt of court, causing Fowler to stay in jail another day.
This story was originally published April 27, 2019 at 4:01 PM with the headline "SC man who burned cemetery cross, desecrated graves, gets more charges, police say."