Man Admits Torching Landmark Brooklyn Church, Notebook Listed Plans to 'Murder Them' and 'Rape Him'

A 24-year-old homeless man admitted to setting the fire that destroyed a 173-year-old landmark church in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and told investigators he had recently tried to burn down a second church in the borough, according to a federal detention memo obtained by the New York Post and the New York Daily News.

John Jones is charged with arson in connection with the June blaze that gutted the South Bushwick Reformed Church, a wooden house of worship built in 1853 and landmarked by the city in 1968. The Post reported the fire happened June 19; the Daily News, citing the same prosecution filing, reported June 17. Either way, the fire triggered a three-alarm response, collapsed the church's historic spire, and destroyed thousands of artifacts tied to a congregation dating back to the Dutch colonial period, according to the National Fund for Sacred Spaces.

Prosecutors say Jones confessed during a law enforcement interview this week. "The defendant admitted to committing the church arson for which he has been charged in this case," the six-page memo reads, according to the Post. "Furthermore, the defendant stated that he had recently attempted to burn down a second church in Brooklyn, New York."

How He Got Caught

Jones wasn't arrested for the church fire directly. Police picked him up at 1:39 a.m. Wednesday, August 5, at a CVS near Times Square after he allegedly tried to steal a sandwich, a Coke Zero, and a salad, according to the Daily News. That arrest, on New York County shoplifting charges, is what put a notebook in his possession into police hands and ultimately connected him to the church fire.

Inside the notebook, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney William Bristow's letter to the court, was a handwritten chart with categories including "Murder them," "Kill them," "Stab them," "Make them Pay," "Rape him," "Tells the truth," and a category the Daily News transcribed as "Nøkk Truth Moon" with tally marks underneath. Prosecutors noted that several of the categories also included repeated, sometimes misspelled, references to the word "church."

Bristow called Jones "a danger to the community" and argued the notebook corroborates fears that Jones intends to target more churches, according to the Daily News. Federal prosecutors are seeking to hold him without bail.

The Video Trail

Surveillance footage cited in the criminal complaint reportedly shows a man matching Jones's description loitering around the South Bushwick Reformed Church on the day of the fire and trying to get inside. When that didn't work, he crossed the street, according to the Post, and bought a lighter from a nearby bodega. The Daily News specifies it was a 99-cent store, paid for with coins. He then returned to the church. Video shows smoke pouring from the building shortly after, prosecutors said.

Jones is charged with arson, which carries a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in federal prison if he's convicted. He's scheduled to be arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court on Friday, August 7.

What's Still Unconfirmed

The two accounts disagree on the exact date of the fire, June 17 versus June 19, a discrepancy neither outlet resolved and one that will get clarified at arraignment or in the formal indictment. Neither report identifies the second Brooklyn church Jones allegedly tried to burn, whether that attempt caused any damage, or whether he's been charged in connection with it. It's also not yet clear from the available filings whether Jones has any documented history of mental illness that might factor into his defense or sentencing, though his notebook and behavior as described by prosecutors point to serious psychological instability.

A reasonable defense attorney would likely argue that a chaotic, misspelled list found on a homeless man with an apparent history of untreated mental illness is not, by itself, evidence of a coordinated plan to attack multiple houses of worship. Prosecutors clearly see it differently, and a federal judge will weigh that dispute directly on the bail question at Friday's arraignment.

What's certain is what's already gone: a wooden sanctuary that survived nearly two centuries, one of only eight landmarked wooden houses of worship left in New York City, reduced to a burned-out shell with its spire collapsed and its archive of historical artifacts destroyed.