Richmond man charged with setting city-owned storage building on fire

RICHMOND, Ind. — A Richmond man has been accused of setting fire to a city-owned storage building.

Kirk Brian Lynch, 61, was charged Tuesday in Wayne Superior Court 1 with arson, a Level 4 felony carrying up to 12 years in prison.

The fire, on Jan. 30, was reported in the 400 block of Northwest Fourth Street.

A court document said the "larger barn" had contained "a large amount of plastic" and was considered a "total loss."

A Richmond Fire Department investigator determined the blaze had been the result of arson.

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An affidavit indicated Lynch, who lives near the scene of the fire, became a suspect after investigators viewed a surveillance video from a nearby building.

According to the affidavit, the video recording contradicted a statement Lynch gave to the RFD investigator, saying he "knew nothing about the fire and had arrived home after the fire trucks responded,"

Lynch later agreed to meet with Richmond police investigators and asked to view the surveillance video, but he then did not show up, the document said.

In a separate Superior Court 1 case filed Tuesday, Lynch was charged with possession of meth, a Level 5 felony carrying up to six years in prison.

Court records indicate Lynch, in 2012, was convicted of attempted child molesting in southern Indiana's Jennings County.

That conviction stemmed from his efforts to meet with a 12-year-old girl he had communicated with via MySpace.

The Indiana Court of Appeals overturned a second related conviction — for child solicitation — and reduced Lynch's executed prison sentence from 35 to 20 years.

He was released from prison in 2020, according to a state Department of Correction website.

Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Richmond man charged with arson in storage building fire