Alaska State Troopers last week arrested an Anchor Point man for second-degree arson and fifth-degree weapons misconduct after contacting him near the scene of a trailer fire in Anchor Point. Trevor Cole, 33, also was charged with sixth-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance.
According to a criminal complaint by Trooper David Chaffin, troopers and Anchor Point Volunteer Fire Department firefighters went about 9 p.m. Dec. 26 to a fire on Chakok Avenue in Anchor Point off the North Fork Road. They found a travel trailer fully engulfed in flames. No one was in the trailer. Chaffin noticed shoe tracks in the snow with a distinct tread pattern, he wrote.
Troopers identified Cole as the owner of the property. After the fire was out, at about 10:50 p.m. troopers contacted Cole walking on the North Fork Road. He carried a bolt-action rifle and two bags, Chaffin wrote. Cole told troopers he had a concealed handgun, but when Chaffin told Cole he wanted to secure the handgun, Cole refused to give it up. Troopers arrested Cole for fifth-degree weapons misconduct, a provision of state weapons law that requires a person to allow a trooper to secure a concealed weapon when contacted. After his arrest, Cole made threats that he would be justified and had a right to kill troopers because they “unlawfully arrested him,” Chaffin wrote. Troopers found a .380 caliber Taurus handgun in Cole’s pants pocket.
Before being formally interviewed, Chaffin said Cole made unprompted statements that the burned trailer belonged to another man, and that he did not like that man because he took advantage of him and left the trailer on Cole’s property. He said the man lived in the trailer until about two months ago and that a woman had visited the trailer off and on. Cole said he wanted to lure the man out to the property or Whiskey Gulch to attack him.
Chaffin wrote that he noticed shoe tracks in the snow next to Cole were the same as that seen near the burned trailer. Cole initially denied setting the fire, but when Chaffin confronted him with the fact that the shoe prints matched, Cole admitted to setting a pillow on fire inside the trailer, Chaffin wrote. “Fire is cleansing,” Chaffin said Cole told him.
Troopers also followed tracks from where they contacted Chaffin. Troopers said Cold had hid in the woods while firefighters responded to the fire.
Troopers found a personal use amount of marijuana on Cole while searching him before taking him to jail.
Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.
