Serial Arsonist Sentenced To 40 Years

{Charleston, West Virginia}...Serial arsonist John Lawson of Charleston was sentenced Friday to 40 years in prison after his fifth conviction, the latest in Charleston last July. The plea deal blocks prosecutors from going after him as a repeat offender, but Assistant Prosecutor Fred Giggenbach says federal authorities are looking at his possible involvement in an Austin, Texas nursing home fire that caused five deaths in 1998. Lawson, who was working night security at the nursing home, told investigators he fell asleep with a cigarette in his mouth and the cigarette fell onto a blanket, catching it on fire. Lawson moved to Charleston shortly after that incident, where on the one-year anniversary of the nursing home blaze, he set fire to a Lee Terrace elderly-living center and served 6 years on a first-degree arson conviction. In the mid-2000s, Lawson was convicted of starting a string of 16 dumpster fires in Charleston. In July, Charleston police arrested him after he admitted to setting his Lee Street apartment ablaze to smoke out "spirits" he believed were living there. He admitted to starting a fire in his niece's Quarrier Street apartment a few weeks earlier.