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Katima Mccullough, 33, “was behind on car payments and dodging repossession,” Detective Capt. Timothy Torell told CLIFFVIEW PILOT following her September 2013 arrest.
Police and firefighters responding to the fire call found McCullough’s 2007 Nissan Murano ablaze on Elmore Avenue in the city’s Fourth Ward, Torell said.
“No one was in or around the vehicle and the responding firefighters immediately saw signs of an intentional setting,” the captain said.
McCullough “initially denied any knowledge of the fire and then made an insurance claim,” he said.
City police detectives and Fire Department investigators teamed up with members of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Arson Squad.
Besides learning McCullough’s history with the car, they canvassed the area and recovered surveillance video from nearby buildings, Torell said.
It showed her and her boyfriend, Armar Moore, running from the scene of the fire, he said.
The indictment charges Mccullough with deliberately starting the fire in order to destroy the vehicle, owned by LIberty Savings LLC.
Moore, meanwhile is charged with lying to police in an effort to “hinder the detention, apprehension, investigation, prosecution, conviction or punishment of another.”
MUGSHOTS: Courtesy ENGLEWOOD PD
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