POUGHKEEPSIE – A Sunday morning domestic incident sent one person to the hospital, destroyed a house, and sent a man to jail. The series of incidents in Poughkeepsie began to unfold around 8:45 a.m.
Initial reports say that police responded to a report of a man suffering from a stab wound sustained during a domestic dispute with the victim’s father.
City police responded to Radcliffe Road and witnessed the father breaking the windshield of a car parked in front of 18 Radcliffe Road. As the victim, who had fled with his mother to a neighbor’s house was being treated and taken to the hospital, the suspect, later identified as Edward Lee Plummer, 59, spread several cans of accelerant, presumed to be gasoline, throughout the house and lit it on fire. After lighting the fire, the suspect fled in a vehicle.
Plummer led police on a brief car chase in the area and returned to his house where he crashed the car through the garage door of the residence and attempted to run away on foot. Police tased Plummer in a neighboring yard and took him into custody while Poughkeepsie, Arlington, and Fairview firefighters attempted to extinguish the fire.
Plummer was charged with two counts of attempted murder, assault, arson, and two counts of menacing.
The suspect’s vehicle, after crashing through the garage (c) MidHudsonNews.com
Fire Chief Mark Johnson said that the suspect had used an accelerant, likely gasoline, to ignite the fire in the living room and kitchen of the dwelling. Firefighters also discovered several unignited cans of accelerant in a bedroom of the house. Johnson said that the fire department was investigating the fire incident while the city police were investigating the other aspects of the events.
