Arrest Made in '01 Arson Fire That Killed Phoenix Firefighter Bret Tarver

Bret Tarver A 24-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of starting the 2001 fire that killed Phoenix firefighter Bret Tarver. Chris Benitez was 15 when he started a fire in a trash mound next to a westside Southwest Supermarket, investigators believe. Tarver was helping to battle the inferno...

By Ray Stern

July 6, 2009

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Bret Tarver

A 24-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of starting the 2001 fire that killed Phoenix firefighter Bret Tarver.

Chris Benitez was 15 when he started a fire in a trash mound next to a westside Southwest Supermarket, investigators believe.

Tarver was helping to battle the inferno when he became disoriented because of a lack of breathable air, says a write-up of the incident on the Web site of Phoenix Firehouse #8. His death launched numerous efforts to ensure a similar tragedy wouldn't happen again.

Benitez "had been a suspect for a long time," says Captain Hugh Chase of the Phoenix Fire Department. Following a grand jury indictment, Benitez was sent home from his service in Iraq and arrested on July 4 in Texas, Chase says.

The department plans a news conference this afternoon to give out more details about the case and another we wrote about today, the fatal arson fire at Young Champions of America.

Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.

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