A Pennsylvania woman is being held behind bars after she allegedly hired someone to burn down the house where her estranged wife was staying as family members — including multiple children — were inside.
Heather Dibert, 43, is accused of hiring Zachery Sellers, 34, to set fire to a hope in Napier Township, a Bedford County community around 100 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State Police said in a news release.
The failed fire was set on Oct. 29, according to the statement.
“During the arson it was found that there were several people inside the residence,” police also said.
Heather Dibert (Bedford County (Pa.) Prison via WTAJ).
State police arrested Sellers on Tuesday. Dibert was arrested the next day.
Investigators reportedly discovered messages between Dibert and Sellers in which Dibert offered money and drugs if the man burned down the home where Dibert’s wife was staying, according to local NBC affiliate WJAC.
Dibert reportedly started messaging with Sellers after Dibert was charged on Oct. 18 with threatening to kill her wife’s father after an alleged altercation, WJAC reported, citing an arrest affidavit.
Ten days later, authorities were called to respond to a house fire at the home where Dibert’s wife was staying. That fire was allegedly started just after midnight on Oct. 28, when a Molotov cocktail was thrown onto the porch of the home. Multiple family members, including children, were reportedly inside at the time.
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The family reportedly put out the fire, and the porch had only minor damage, local CBS affiliate WTAJ reported.
When Sellers was arrested, he reportedly told police Dibert had ordered him to “kill them all.”
Dibert also allegedly set up an elaborate ruse to suggest that she was in West Virginia at a strip club at the time of the attempted arson. According to the WTAJ report, citing the criminal complaint, cellphone records showed Dibert in the area of her estranged wife’s home before meeting up with Sellers in Lewiston. After that, she allegedly went back to the area of the home but split up again a few hours before the attempted fire.
At that time, cellphone records indicate Dibert traveled to Martinsburg, West Virginia, and searched for “Club Lust,” an area “gentlemen’s club,” which would apparently have served as an alibi, according to reports.
Dibert’s cellphone showed she was back in Pennsylvania just after 4 a.m., WTAJ reported.
She is believed to have hatched the plan after learning that her wife was planning on leaving her, and was reportedly arrested in November for violating a protective order to stay away from her estranged spouse.
Dibert has been charged with solicitation and conspiracy to commit criminal homicide, solicitation and conspiracy to commit arson, and solicitation and conspiracy to commit attempted aggravated assault. Records show she is being held at the Bedford County Jail on $1 million bail.
Sellers has been charged with attempted criminal homicide, arson, and attempted aggravated assault, and he is in custody at the Mifflin County Correctional Facility, state police say.
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