A Richmond County jury deliberated for only 30 minutes before returning a guilty verdict in the case of a man accused of arson.
Charles Bragg, 52, was accused of arson in the first degree in relation to a fire that occurred Sept. 14, 2020, at an apartment building at 1837 Wrightsboro Road in Augusta. Bragg had lived in the building prior to being evicted.
Maintenance tech Kelvin Plummer told jurors that on the morning of the fire, he and property manager Chanté Myrick were going to the unit Bragg had lived in to remove an outside breaker box.
Myrick told jurors Bragg had threatened her and and Plummer with his dog and has also thrown an unknown liquid on the maintenance tech.
The defendant was angry that he was being evicted by the property owner, according to a press release from the District Attorney’s office. According to Myrick, Bragg was the only tenant residing at the complex because property owners Loomis Residential Property were relocating residents to better housing options.
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Richmond County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the scene because of the incident involving Bragg and the property maintenance worker.
A 25 minute period passed between the time deputies and staff left and when the fire was reported. Bragg was the only person left on the property during that time.
Patrick Parris, who was driving to a dental appointment, said he saw the flames from the road and called the Richmond County Fire Department.
Bragg stayed on site watching the fire grow and made no attempt to put it out or alert authorities. No one was hurt by the fire or smoke inhalation.
“Some people just want to watch the world burn,” said ADA Kyle Davis, who led the two-day trial. “When Charles Bragg stood on that lawn watching this building burn, he was saying, ‘If I can’t live here, no one can.’”
Retired fire department Capt. Carlton Bradley investigated the fire, and he concluded the fire was intentionally set.
“Heat rises,” Bradley said in his testimony. “Had this been an electrical fire from the outlet where his [Bragg’s] items were, the fire would have started lower on the boxes. The fire began at the top of the debris and traveled up into the ceiling.”
Bradley explained that pictures showed none of the extension cords in the home to be charred. He concluded that the fire was not started by wiring when he pulled back the charred drywall of the breezeway and saw that the wiring there had not been affected. He sent samples of the ask to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for further testing.
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Richmond County Sheriff’s Investigator William Smith also concluded that the fire had been set intentionally after his investigation.
“There were lots of wires, but this fire didn’t start in the home,” Smith said. “It happened in that hall on top of the boxes of clothes.”
Smith and Bradley both said Bragg had not answered questions about the fire when they talked to him.
“He answered all the personal information questions, but he would try to change the subject and wouldn’t maintain eye contact when I tried asking him about the fire,” Bradley said.
GBI Forensic Chemist Amber Carroll said her examination of samples collected from the fire found traces of medium petroleum distillate, a flammable substance used to start fires.
Bragg declined to testify. His mother and sister pleaded for leniency in sentencing.
Superior Court Judge John Flythe sentenced Bragg to three years in prison, followed by 17 years on probation. Bragg’s was the first Augusta Judicial District trial of 2023.
