New footage shows the scorched remains of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home after it was firebombed on Sunday.
PAcast, an official state website, posted a video showing a charred, empty window frame surrounded by blackened, peeling walls.
The couch cushions have burst, scattering foam pieces around the room. The nearby piano is burned out, and the tables have melted into suspended dribbles of plastic.
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Debris covers the floors and surfaces of the room while furniture, lamps, catering equipment, and other unrecognisable items from the room are strewn around haphazardly.
The two adjacent rooms—one of which is a dining room—were relatively untouched by the blaze.
On Sunday, an arsonist set fire to the governor’s residence. Police arrested Cody Balmer, 38, on suspicion of arson on Monday.
The suspect—who has admitted to the crime, according to local police—used a hammer to break into the governor’s mansion, where he set off three Molotov cocktails, according to an affidavit filed early Monday morning.
Police say Balmer jumped the fence at the governor’s mansion early Sunday morning while Shapiro and his family slept upstairs.
Surveillance footage shows him breaking a window with a hammer and throwing a Molotov cocktail inside, “igniting a substantial fire within,” Fran Chardo, Dauphin County District Attorney, said in a statement accompanying the affidavit.
He then broke another window and entered the home.
“Within the residence, he started two more fires with two other Molotov cocktails. He then fled through a fire door,” Chardo said.
Early Monday, Balmer was charged with attempted murder, aggravated arson, burglary, terrorism, and related offenses.
His mother, Christie Balmer, told CBS News on Sunday that Balmer was “mentally ill, and he went off his medication.”
She said she had tried to get her son “picked up” last week and, despite contacting four different police departments, “couldn’t get anyone to help.”
“So, he was mentally ill, went off his meds, and this is what happened,” she said.
