A Third Arrest Made in Masardis Arson

The State Fire Marshal’s Office says a Linneus woman has been charged for her role in a 2016 fire that destroyed a truck in Masardis.

Two men were arrested and charged with arson in 2016.  Forty-one-year-old Melissa Sawyer was arrested Thursday in Houlton and charged with arson. Sawyer was charged by Fire Investigator Jeremy Damren and taken to the Aroostook County Jail.

The fire destroyed a 2012 Kenworth tractor parked in the yard of John Craig Trucking on the Garfield Road in Masardis on April 11, 2016. Craig, 48, and Richard Gilman, 25, were arrested a few months later and charged with arson.  Fire Investigators said the truck was torched for insurance proceeds and the two men claimed they were elsewhere with Sawyer at the time of the fire.

New information by investigators now contends that Sawyer was at the fire site, along with the two men. There was still $90,000 owed on the truck when it was burned.