Scott Glenn Willett of Gassville made a first appearance in Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday and entered a not guilty plea to a charge of arson stemming from his alleged torching of his mother’s home “because God told me to do it”.
There has been an ongoing conflict between Willett and his mother. A substantial number of incident reports have been filed with the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office in which the 25-year-old Willett has, at various times, allegedly made threats to kill his mother and burn her residence.
In an incident report filed April 14th, deputies were called to the mother’s home on Wildcat Shoals Road where they found candles burning and a glass candleholder with smoldering cotton balls in it placed in the master bedroom.
Willett’s mother has taken out orders of protection against her son and then dropped them. In one court filing she said she dropped a protective order because her son threatened to kill her and burn her home unless she did.
Deputies were called to the mother’s home in mid-April when she reported her son was at her home despite a no contact order being in effect. Willett told officers he had given his mother a ride home because she was walking down the road. The first deputy to arrive attempted to arrest Willett for violating the no contact order, but he resisted and it was necessary to eventually use a stun gun to subdue him along with the assistance of a second deputy who had arrived on the scene, according to the incident report. During the encounter, Willett’s mother was reported as “yelling” at the deputies telling them that she intended to drop the no contact order against her son and that it was permissible for him to be on her property. According to the incident report, the mother “was just rambling in a wild rant” that seem to the officer to indicate “mental issues”.
Willett’s ex-father-in-law also filed an order of protection after Willett allegedly refused to leave the father-in-law’s home. In the report of that incident, Willett was told he was not welcome and as he was being escorted out of the residence, he is reported to have hit his father-in-law twice, then gone to his truck, retrieved two machetes and began chopping at hedges and other objects in the yard.
In the latest incident, deputies were called to the Wildcat Shoals Road address regarding a report of a structure fire. Willett told officers that when he arrived at his mother’s residence, he found emergency personnel at the scene. Willett denied any knowledge of how the fire had started.
A neighbor had video surveillance cameras on this property and provided investigators with footage to establish a time line and chain of events related to the fire. Willett was allegedly observed leaving the residence just after 11:30 a.m. on September 5th and smoke was seen on the video footage less than a minute later.
When questioned further, Willett allegedly confessed to setting the fire. At the time he was questioned, Willett was already in custody in the Baxter County Detention Center on a misdemeanor charge. He had been booked into the jail in the early morning hours of September 7th. After the arson charge was lodged his bond was upped to almost $76,000.
Andrew Bailey with the Public Defender’s Office asked the court to consider lowering Willett’s bond to $5,000, but Circuit Judge John Putman said he needed time to think about the request. Willett was ordered to reappear on December 1st.
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