Truck firebombed in Nipomo

Posted: Mar 28, 2012 11:51 PM by Ariel Wesler
Updated: Mar 29, 2012 8:04 AM

A truck is set on fire and it's all caught on camera. Now, investigators are trying to catch the man responsible.

They are trying to figure out who it is in the surveillance video that started the fire in Nipomo. It happened in the Maria Vista Estates around 3:30 Wednesday morning.

It's a housing development still under construction in the 700 block of Vista Del Rio.

The truck belongs to the project manager. He has cameras throughout the construction site and one of them captured someone firebombing his truck.

The hunt is on to catch the arsonist responsible for setting Leroy Morgan's truck on fire early Wednesday morning in Nipomo.

"My son comes running into my bedroom. Dad! Your truck's on fire! Your truck's on fire," Morgan said.

He found the cab of his truck engulfed in flames. Morgan grabbed a water hose and used fire extinguishers to put it out as quickly as possible.

"We thought it might explode. We could here crackling, which was the windows, the front windshield breaking," he said.

He says the criminal used gas to start the fire.

"They had actually taken the gas can out of the back of my truck, filled the bottle, smashed the window with a hammer, which they left and then lit it on fire," Morgan said.

That fire totalled his 1998 Ford truck in minutes. Arson investigators were able to recover the gas can, lighter, and hammer, but say it could take weeks to process the evidence. It's upsetting for Morgan who commutes each week from Southern California.

"It was a great truck! It's too bad. I mean, I drive it back and forth every Monday and every Friday when i go home," Morgan said. This is a tremendous loss for me personally."

In the meantime, he is getting a rental car. He says he has an idea who is behind the crime. In the last 10 days, he has had problems with a man who lives in the area snooping around and stirring up trouble.

Morgan says there have been thefts on the property, but this incident is the worst he's seen in all his years in construction.