Somerset mother accused of setting son’s home on fire with pizza boxes, took dog to watch it burn

According to the Ferguson Police Department, patrol officers were dispatched around 2:50 p.m. on Thursday to the 600 block of Soard Street for a house fire.

Officers noted that flames were coming from the roof of the home, and a neighbor advised that the homeowners weren’t there but that 64-year-old Renee Whitehead had been staying there with her son.

An initial investigation revealed that the fire started in the kitchen by using the electric range to ignite pizza boxes, per court documents.

Whitehead reportedly admitted to police during an interview that she had set the house on fire using the stove and a piece of cardboard in the kitchen, then fed the fire with pizza boxes.

She also allegedly told police she set her Harlan County apartment on fire last week.

After she set the home on fire, Whitehead reportedly took her dog to a nearby home and “watched the dwelling burn.”

Whitehead was booked in the Pulaski County Detention Center on second-degree arson and first-degree criminal mischief charges.