Townhome fire started after man pounds hole in neighbor's wall, points rifle through it
Investigators are searching for a person of interest in connection with a series of peculiar incidents including a fire, a hammer, and a a hole in a neighboring wall, along with a rifle pointed through that hole into a townhome between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Friday.
The Table Mountain Townhouses in Golden on West Colfax near 6th Avenue ignited in flames early Friday morning. The fire began after Shaun Todd's next-door neighbor began banging on his wall.
"I started hearing the pounding... got my phone, went to the living room and turned on my recorder and started recording it," he explained.
Todd played it back from his phone and the continuous sound of banging on a wall could be heard.
Todd ran to his roommate James Blea, who told CBS News Colorado that he saw what was happening, "The hammer is coming through the wall and after that, we see a barrel."
Todd says once a hole was made in the wall, things got even worse, "Right then he put a rifle with a flashlight on top of it through the hole in the wall."
He says they ran out of the townhome as a fire began. They hurriedly warned neighbors about the fire.
Some six units were damaged, possessions lost, but there was one happy recovery from the ashes. A ring that Josiah McCloud and his father had purchased together in Scotland.
"It was the only thing I thought I am going to miss that wasn't in my safe already," said McCloud.
Police identified a person of interest as James Oakley Gambrell Jr., 48. He is ex-military, and reported by police as possibly paranoid, armed and dangerous. Police said to call 911 immediately if you see Gambrell, and don't walk up to him.
A motive behind all this is unclear. No one was injured.
