[span class="mainarttitle"][span class="mainarttitle"]Three Students Held in Ala. Church Fires
[/span][/span][table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td]
[/td][/tr][tr][td colspan="2"][img]http://images.forbes.com/media/assets/spacer_white.gif" height="5" width="5"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table][!--/OUTER BOX TABLE--][span class="mainarttxt"]Three college students, including two aspiring actors known around campus as pranksters, were arrested Wednesday in a string of nine church fires across Alabama.[/span]
[span style="font-weight: bold;" class="mainarttxt"]Federal agents said the defendants claimed the first few fires were set as "a joke" and the others were started to throw investigators off the track.[/span]
(Watch me laugh when they're sent to prison. Now that will be funny, ha ha!)[/b]
[span class="mainarttxt"]Gov. Bob Riley said the church arsons did not appear to be "any type of conspiracy against organized religion" or the Baptist faith. With the arrests, he said, "the faith-based community can rest a little easier."[/span]
[span class="mainarttxt"]Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk Jr., both 19-year-old students at Birmingham-Southern College, appeared in federal court and were ordered held on church arson charges pending a hearing Friday.[/span]
[span class="mainarttxt"]Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20-year-old junior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was also arrested.[/span]
[span class="mainarttxt"]The fires broke out at five Baptist churches in Bibb County south of Birmingham on Feb. 3 and four Baptist churches in west Alabama on Feb. 7. The federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency had made the arsons its top priority, with scores of federal agents joining state and local officers.[/span]
[span class="mainarttxt"]"While all three are entitled to have their day in court, we are very hopeful that this is the end to the fear that has been rampant in West Alabama," said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala.[/span]
