Madison County suspect confesses to setting ‘synagogue of Satan’ on fire
By Richard Bourne
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JACKSON, Mississippi (WAPT) — Court documents are revealing new details after a Jackson synagogue was set on fire over the weekend.
The FBI said Stephen Spencer Pittman’s father contacted authorities and notified them his son confessed via text message to setting the synagogue on fire.
The Jackson Fire Department was called to Beth Israel Congregation on Old Canton Road early Sunday morning.
Cellphone map data showed Pittman, 19, traveled from his Madison County home to the synagogue. Before arriving at the scene, cell data showed he stopped at a gas station in Ridgeland. Pittman later confessed that he stopped to get gas, and he took his license plate off his car while stopped.
The FBI said Pittman texted his father a picture from the scene as well as messages saying, “There’s a furnace in the back,” “Btw my plate is off,” “Hoodie is on,” “They have the best cameras” and “I did my research.”
Officials said he used an axe to break a window of the building to get inside Beth Israel, poured gas all over inside and used a torch lighter to start the fire. Pittman said he caught himself on fire while setting the building on fire.
Surveillance video captured a hooded man pouring gasoline inside the building.
That torch lighter was later found at the scene. Pittman told authorities that he also left his primary cellphone inside. The FBI recovered the burned cellphone.
Court filings said when Pittman’s father saw him later that day, he saw the burns on him and Pittman confessed to breaking into what he referred to as the “synagogue of Satan” and lighting it on fire, laughing as he confessed to his dad, saying he finally got them.
Pittman has been charged with arson. The FBI agent leading the investigation has experience handling cases related to domestic and international terrorism, but no charges of those kind have yet been filed.
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