2005 BLAZE DESTROYED A DOZEN DOWNTOWN BUSINESSES.
According to the Plant City Police Department (PCPD) incident report from February 21, 2005, when the first officer arrived on the scene at Mark’s Electronics at 104 E. Martin Luther King Blvd., he saw heavy smoke and fire inside the business but the windows and doors were still intact. Plant City Fire Rescue (PCFR) 1 responded and began trying to extinguish the fire. The police officer noted a green Dodge van parked near the business. He ran a check on the van and found it registered to Angelica Ruth Lockett. It came to light she, and the owner of the business, Mark P. Simpson, were in a romantic relationship.
The arriving PCPD officer interviewed Simpson. who said he left the door of his business unlocked so Lockett could leave clothes inside. At the Silver Dollar Saloon down the street at 107 E. Dr. King Blvd, he and Lockett were arguing, and he knew she was mad at him. He left the saloon to get cigarettes from his business. He saw the business on fire, and went back into the bar and told someone to call 911. He believed his girlfriend, Lockett, set his business on fire, but he didn’t see her do it. The PCPD officer asked Simpson to wait to speak to the fire chief, but he left the area without speaking to him.
The officer then interviewed the witness, Jeffrey L. Hunt. While in the Silver Dollar Saloon, Hunt saw Simpson and Lockett together in the bar, arguing most of the night. Hunt asked Lockett to leave the saloon because of her behavior, so she left. Simpson left shortly after Lockett, but came back 20 minutes later calling for help, and said his business was on fire. Hunt called 911.
A different witness stated to police, that he heard Simpson ran into the saloon and yelled, “My place is on fire, and my girlfriend, Angel, started it!”
About 75 firefighters responded to the alarm, including some from Hillsborough County and Lakeland. However, it took more than three hours to put out the fire, and it destroyed the building, which had once housed a Belk-Lindsey Department Store, and a five and dime store. At the time it burned, it was called the Village Shoppes and housed a dozen businesses including Yesterday’s Attic, James Buzbee’s law office, and the Parkside Cafe. At least one business owner had allowed their insurance to lapse. David Hawthorne and, his wife, Vicki, owned the building.
Prosecutors soon charged Lockett with throwing a lit cigarette into a back room of Mark’s Electronics which sparked the fire. In February, 2006, Lockett, pleaded guilty to arson charges. Prosecutors asked that she be sentenced to four years and seven months in state prison. Instead, the Hillsborough Circuit Judge sentenced Lockett to two years of house arrest followed by 15 years of probation.
The judge ordered Lockett, who was 60 at the time, unemployed, and living on disability payments, to pay $100 a month toward in restitution for the $1,008,963 in damage from the blaze—which would take 840 years to pay in full.
David Hawthorne’s ancestors settled in Plant City in the 1840s. Beginning in 1997, he and Vicki were responsible for renovating seven historic buildings in downtown Plant City including Hookers Department Store and the Kilgore Seed Building.
