Bellefonte man gets prison for fire that badly damaged home. ‘Nightmare we cannot escape’
A Bellefonte man who intentionally set fire to his childhood home while he knew one of his sisters was inside received a lengthy prison sentence Friday, one that will keep him under supervision for decades.
Matthew J. Davis, 38, was sentenced by Centre County Judge Julia Rater to 15 1/2 to 40 years in state prison. He received credit for nearly 22 months served in the Centre County Correctional Facility.
After announcing her ruling, Rater said she hopes the long sentence allows him to “get the rehabilitation you need and deserve.” Davis did not speak before his sentence was handed down.
Centre County prosecutors and Assistant Public Defender Rebecca H. Bain each said the July 2023 fire was the product of Davis’ childhood trauma and a lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse.
After taking a bicycle from Sunnyside Boulevard, prosecutors said he rode more than five miles to Red Horse Tavern, where he purchased a six-pack of beer. He then went to the gas station across the street and began talking to himself and pacing back and forth.
When a clerk told him he could not have two bottles of beer in the store, Davis threw one at the ceiling and watched it shatter before abruptly leaving. He then rode the bicycle to his sisters’ home along the 200 block of North Vanessa Drive.
After an initial attempt to start a fire failed, prosecutors said Davis took a 100-pound propane tank from a neighbor’s property, placed it in the back seat of an SUV parked next to the house and lit it on fire. Witnesses said the flames reached two stories high and sounded like a jet engine.
The fire destroyed the vehicle, significantly damaged the home and melted the siding of the neighbor’s garage. Davis was arrested shortly after by Spring Township police.
In a statement read by Centre County First Assistant District Attorney Josh Andrews, the sisters said they fear their brother and described the fire as a “nightmare we cannot escape.”
“He will not stop until he kills us,” the sisters wrote. “... Watching my house burn is something that will never leave me.”
Davis told township police detective Luke Nelson he was estranged from his sisters since 2007 and planned for the fire to be the night “everything ended.” He consumed several beers and used methamphetamine beforehand.
He was first removed from his childhood home at 15 years old after his sister found a loaded handgun in his bedroom, Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna wrote in his memo to the judge. After being diagnosed with two disorders characterized by aggressive or hostile behaviors, he was kicked out of two psychiatric hospitals.
What followed was what Cantorna described as a lengthy period of arrests, incarcerations and chronic drug abuse. During one of his stops in jail, Davis’ father died and he was not allowed to attend his funeral.
By the time he was released, Davis’ sisters had taken steps to sell or give away all of the weapons at the house. Cantorna said Davis then blamed his sisters for “depriving him of mementos of the relationship with his father.”
Then, after his mother died in 2011, Davis learned she did not include him in her will, Cantorna wrote. She instead gave everything, including the family home, to Davis’ sisters.
Andrews said Davis was fixated on killing his sisters for more than 16 years. Cantorna, meanwhile, wrote that the fire was the result of a long-term “obsession of the perceived wrongs the defendant felt his family had inflicted on him.”
“His long record and the time that he has harbored these desires to kill his sisters have gone undeterred and undiminished, even though he has been offered every kind of counseling and treatment that the system can offer,” Cantorna wrote in his memo. “In order to ensure that the sisters are protected, any sentence this court issues must include a sentence that ensures that he will be under the supervision of the Department of Corrections for the remainder of his realistic lifetime.”
Davis pleaded guilty in March to a felony count of arson and attempted aggravated assault. Seven charges were dropped as part of the agreement, including a count of attempted first-degree murder.
In pushing for a sentence of 12 1/2 to 30 years in prison, Bain said Davis is remorseful, pleaded guilty to spare his sister from having to testify at trial and completed all available programs at the county jail.
She also said he is “extremely grateful” his sisters were not harmed.
“It is clear that Mr. Davis did not just wake up one day and decide that he was going to light a house on fire. It was years of childhood abuse and mistreatment that led to the events that occurred,” Bain wrote in her memo. “While this in no way excuses his actions, Mr. Davis had resentment towards his sisters and placed blame on them for his childhood trauma.”
