A Highland man is facing an attempted murder case after he allegedly firebombed a man’s bedroom in East Chicago, court records show.
Keith M. Peterson, 36, was also charged Thursday with arson.
He has not been apprehended. Peterson is ordered held on a $65,000, or $6,500 cash surety bond.
East Chicago Police and the fire department responded at 11 a.m. March 24 to a home on the 3800 block of Alder Street. The back bedroom was on fire.
The victim said he was there when it sounded like someone threw a rock through the window. He heard a “swoosh.” He grabbed a blanket, but it did nothing to stem the fire.
It spread quickly.
About four to six months earlier, the man said his relationship with Peterson fizzled after he suspected Peterson was involved with an ex.
A video showed a man in a black t-shirt with green letters and jeans throwing an object similar to a Molotov cocktail into the home, then sprinting away.
Peterson was later arrested in a black St. Patrick’s Day shirt near 44th Avenue and Cleveland Street in Gary in the bed of a white pickup truck that was just reported stolen from an apartment complex where he used to work. Police responded to the area after someone complained that several people were doing drugs at a home.
He appeared to be drunk, was staggering and had several red gas cans in the truck’s bed.
Peterson was arrested for public intoxication.
License plate readers and intersection cameras appeared to put Peterson near the crime scene, then fleeing right after. Court records allege he stopped by a gas station to buy a lighter just before the fire.