A domestic dispute between a homeowner and his renter in the Granada Villa Mobile Home Park led to a fire that burned the bedroom of the renter’s home Thursday morning.
When the owner asked about the smoke he saw coming from the place, the renter reportedly attacked the owner, according to a witness and law enforcement officials.
According to the owner’s son, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the owner of the home at the mobile home park in the 18500 block of Soledad Canyon Road in Santa Clarita had gone to his renter to ask about something inside the unit possibly burning. He’d learned that the renter had just gotten into an argument with his wife over the phone, the son said, and when the owner continued to press the renter for details about a potential fire inside, which might’ve started on the renter’s bed, the renter grabbed a metal object and hit the owner over the head twice, causing lacerations in the back of the head, repeatedly hitting him in the back.
“My dad was hurt and just ran away,” the son said. After that, the son continued, the renter sat down in front of his house until authorities came and arrested him.
Paramedics took the man to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital.
Deputy Natalie Arriaga, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, later confirmed that the suspect was arrested on suspicion of arson and assault with a deadly weapon.
According to Capt. Gary Garrett of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the fire was burning maybe five minutes before firefighters arrived. It took them about 15 minutes to knock the fire down, he said, keeping it contained to the bedroom only. The room and most of the contents within were destroyed. Nearly the entire front wall of the room was gone by the time all was said and done.
Mariey Molina, who lives in the same home — she’s one of seven residents there, she said — told The Signal that she got a call from a neighbor about the matter and rushed over from work to see what was going on. She said the only two people in the home at the time of the blaze were the owner and the renter. And, there was a dog named Nena, who got out unscathed, she said, save for some ashes in her coat.
The son of the victim said he, his brother and mother, who all arrived on the scene from their jobs after they received a call from the victim, were still waiting for updates from his father shortly after firefighters left the scene. They were not allowed to go to the hospital with him, the son said, and were trying to figure out what to do next.
