Alex Gaisford

More than a year after an abandoned home was set ablaze and destroyed in the Willwood area, authorities have charged a 19-year-old Powell resident in connection with the May 2019 fire.

Park County prosecutors filed a felony charge of third-degree arson offense against Alexander “Alex” Gaisford last month. Gaisford — now free on a $5,000 bond as he awaits a preliminary hearing — is alleged to have helped two juveniles set fire to the residence, which belonged to state lawmaker and farmer David Northrup. Charging documents allege the three teenagers used lighters and cologne to start the fire after drinking alcohol together.

Deputy Park County Attorney Saige Smith said the cases against the two juveniles who were allegedly involved are being handled in juvenile court, where the proceedings are closed to the public.

The structure, in the 900 block of Lane 13 south of Powell, had been unoccupied for years. According to charging documents, Northrup told investigators that “he eventually planned on demolishing or burning the house anyway.” Despite posting no trespassing signs, Northrup told authorities he had repeated problems with trespassers and vandals using the home as a place to drink and party. However, the lawmaker has also said he wanted to salvage some materials from the structure and that the home, which was built by his grandfather in 1939, held sentimental value.

Flames engulfed the roughly 1,200-square-foot building on the night of May 17, 2019. Members of the Powell Volunteer Fire Department worked from roughly 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. to extinguish it.

Arson was immediately suspected. In June 2019, the Park County Sheriff’s Office issued a public request for information about the apparent crime.

Gaisford would later tell agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) that, after seeing the notice from the sheriff’s office, he and the two teens “came to an agreement that they were not doing that again,” authorities allege charging documents.

“Gaisford stated after the story of the arson made the local newspaper, they knew it was going to be a problem, because ‘everybody knows,’” DCI Special Agent Darrell Steward wrote in an affidavit.

Just a couple weeks after the sheriff’s office called on the public for assistance in solving the arson, a “confidential source” identified Gaisford as a suspect. The person told Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Walker that Gaisford had bragged about lighting the house on fire with a friend, saying they’d used some papers to get it started.

In July, Northrup told Deputy Walker he’d heard a similar account from a person who wanted to remain anonymous. The state representative “was upset that no one was investigating the recent arson,” wrote Agent Steward, whose agency ultimately took on the case.

Supporting the idea that papers could have been used to start the fire, investigators would later learn that the home had contained a local attorney’s old case files, charging documents say. Northrup reportedly explained that the attorney had placed the documents in the building sometime earlier, mistakenly thinking that the fire department was going to burn down the structure for training, when it was actually a different residence that was burned by firefighters, the affidavit says.

Steward and another DCI agent, Chad Miner of the Powell Police Department, interviewed Gaisford in Riverton in mid-August 2019. Gaisford said he and a couple other teens had gone to the property “on numerous occasions to consume alcohol,” according to Agent Steward’s affidavit, and they had been drinking there the night of the fire.

The charging documents quote Gaisford as saying that, after finishing the last of their beer, he provided the two teens with a can of Axe body spray that they used to set fire to some papers on the first floor and then to a mattress upstairs.

“By the time Gaisford [and the two other teens] came back down to the ground floor, approximately two minutes … later, they almost didn’t make it out of the house, as the fire had advanced greatly,” Agent Steward wrote of the account that Gaisford allegedly gave to DCI. “They had to cover their mouths as the entire house was full of smoke.”

The three left, and the fire grew into a large blaze that could be seen from a distance.

Charging documents quote Gaisford as saying that his two companions came up with the idea of starting the fire and that he “did not light anything on fire.” However, he also allegedly told the DCI agents that, “I was trying to help them.”

In October, Steward interviewed another teen who stated that Gaisford and the two teens had told him the night of the fire that they started it; it’s unclear whether he was the same person who tipped off the sheriff’s office and/or Northrup.

The Park County Attorney’s Office filed the third-degree charge on June 22, alleging Gaisford started the fire “intentionally, recklessly or with criminal negligence.” He was arrested on June 24 and made his first appearance in circuit court on June 26.

In requesting a $5,000 cash bond for Gaisford, deputy prosecutor Smith cited the severity of the arson charge along with prior misdemeanor criminal charges and past contacts with law enforcement “that are just adding up in a very quick hurry.”

“I do acknowledge that I do have quite a significant Circuit Court history and I do realize that it does not look good,” Gaisford told Circuit Court Judge Bruce Waters. However, he said that, following a citation last year, he joined the Job Corps — that’s what brought him to Riverton — and had worked every day since returning home from the program in March.

“I’ve tried quite hard to get in front of everything that I did before I was at Job Corps,” Gaisford said.

Judge Waters accepted the $5,000 recommendation and one of Gaisford’s family members posted that amount later in the day. While out on bond, Gaisford must obey the law and stay away from the Northrup property, among other conditions.