A Hale County woman has been charged with first-degree criminal mischief after investigators say she set fire to another woman’s belongings during a dispute earlier this month.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Hale District Court, Judy L. Jones, 38, of Akron, is accused of burning property that Lisa Escalante had stored in a shed at Jones’s residence on County Road 5. Escalante, who is from Eutaw and is the sister of Jones’s boyfriend, told investigators she had placed personal items in the shed on January 8 with Jones’s permission.
The complaint states that after Jones argued with her boyfriend on the night of January 9, she repeatedly called and texted Escalante. When Escalante did not respond, Jones allegedly went to the shed, removed several of Escalante’s items, piled them in the driveway, and set them on fire.
Escalante told deputies the destroyed items were worth about $5,000. Jones later told Hale County Sheriff’s Office investigator Jack D. Nelson that she had burned the items because she was angry and that she did not believe they were worth that much, according to the filing.
Jones was arrested January 23 and booked into the Hale County Jail. Court records list her bond at $5,000 on the single count of first-degree criminal mischief, a felony offense under Alabama law.
