Nurse used lighter to start deadly fire, prosecutor says

  

(4/10/07 - HOUSTON) -- A building blaze that killed three people and injured six others last month began in a supply closet after a nurse used a lighter to set fire to a box, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Misty Ann Weaver, 33, has been charged with three counts of felony murder and one count of first-degree arson. The fire March 28 spread throughout the fifth floor of a six-story building near a busy 10-lane highway during the evening rush hour.

Weaver, a licensed vocational nurse, made her first court appearance Tuesday.

According to authorities, Weaver started the fire because she neglected to finish an accreditation audit that was due to her boss, a plastic surgeon, and feared losing her job because of it.

During the brief hearing, prosecutor John Jocher said that in a confession to authorities, Weaver said that on the day of the fire, she re-entered the building after 5 p.m. and went into her office's kitchen area, where she got a lighter.

"She went into a supply closet and set fire to a cardboard box she believed contained plastic tubing," Jocher said.

Weaver waited until the flames rose 4 to 5 inches before leaving the closet, Jocher said.

The nurse is being held in the Harris County Jail under bonds totaling $330,000. She was dressed in an orange jumpsuit during the hearing and said little.

Her attorney, Todd Dupont, told reporters after the hearing that he is focused on hiring experts to go into the building and review investigators' findings, and asking that his client's bonds be reduced.

Beyond that, Dupont said he could not comment on the case because he was just hired.

"Until I know a little bit more about what's going on, it's all brand new to me," he said. "We just don't know enough yet."

Dupont said Weaver was doing fine and that she has never been in trouble with the law before.

At the end of Monday's hearing, Weaver smiled to her family in the courtroom, including her parents and two sisters, just before she was taken away.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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