The Indiana man who was charged with setting a fire on Henderson Island has been sentenced to four years.
Cole Bell pleaded guilty to charges related to the mid-November fire on Henderson Island, said Henderson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Herbie McKee. He will get four years, McKee said.
“At the plea, he admitted he started a small fire on the island to keep warm,” McKee told the Hendersonian in a text message. “He stated that the fire got out of control and he freaked out and didn’t know what to do.”
For the Henderson Island fire, Bell was previously indicted for felony offenses of willfully setting fire to land not owned or controlled; six counts of first-degree wanton endangerment; two counts of first-degree criminal mischief; and being a second-degree persistent felony offender, according to a past Hendersonian article.
Bell’s pleading is not in line with an eyewitness account that previously appeared in the Hendersonian. Adam Blythe, who lives across from the river, said he was looking out his back window that night in mid-November when he noticed three people in a boat shining a spotlight on the island.
He said they went up and down the Kentucky side of the island shore for about 20 minutes.
Blythe said one person, holding what appeared to be a 5-gallon container, jumped out of the boat and scurried up the embankment.
Blythe said he “could see him dumping something” from the container. He said the person dumped it along the embankment and then beyond it, on the inner area of the island.
Moments later, Blythe said he heard a man in the boat yell, “Fire! Fire!” Quickly a torch lit up and another person was lighting the areas where the other had dumped fluid from the container, Blythe said.
Within three minutes, both had returned from the island and were back in the boat, which began moving toward downtown Henderson, Blythe said.
