Home arsons are fiery family affairs in West Virginia
This is what happens when a family decides to burn their homes for insurance money.
The Lesters were a well-known family in parts of Southern West Virginia, especially patriarch Windel Lester, who sat on the board of a local bank. He also owned a hardware store and sold mobile homes.
Windel thought big, as community pillars should, except he slid off the railroad tracks of respectability. Windel decided that burning homes for insurance money would be his next business venture. The whole clan joined the effort. They burned down three homes and tried to walk away with more than $556,000 of insurance money.
Windel had it all figured out: Buy vacant, decrepit homes for next to nothing. Install straw owners to hide their own manipulation, and then pack the homes with useless, junky old furniture bought at flea markets or yard sales. Then they over-insured the homes, and burned them down to make bloated claims for expensive possessions they never owned.
Burn homes with candle oil
Windel’s hardware store sold unscented — and combustible — candle oil. That was the fire starter; he figured it would be untraceable. The store played another role: Windel forged receipts for home possessions to support the series of inflated claims. He also laundered insurance money through the bank he helped run.
So the Lesters got to work. One of the two Lester sons, James Edward “Punkin” Lester helped a crony buy a house for just $38,000, with Windel fronting the money. They bought a $196,000 policy on the dwelling, and $147,000 for the junky possessions. Then they soaked cardboard boxes with the candle oil in the kitchen and a bedroom and started the fire.
The house had no chance and lit up like a roman candle. The straw owner told the insurer the fire was a kitchen-related incident, and received nearly $300,000 of insurance money, which was divided among the family.
Related: Texas woman heading to prison for burning down house for insurance money
Owner was at the county fair
Punkin installed James Keith Browning as the straw owner of another house that soon became blackened ashes. Browning claimed he was at the county fair while the slow-building fire gained steam. Browning collected $100,000 of insurance money and the conspirators shared the loot.
They purchased another doomed house for $100,000. It netted a tidy $280,000 of insurance money after the structure burned down.
Windel is still prominent in these parts, although as a convicted felon. The Lester clan and fake owners were convicted or pled guilty to multiple federal charges. When sentenced, they face anywhere from 80 to 340 years in federal prison.
Even with unscented candle oil, the whiff of fraud was too strong for investigators to ignore.
Dennis Jay (dennisjay@insurancefraud.org) is the executive director of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.