Cops: Man faked hate crime, burned house for money

To Samuel White, it must have seemed like the perfect setup: Deface your house with racial slurs, burn it down and claim you had been the victim of a hate crime — then collect the insurance money and live happily ever after. And sure, it might have worked if White had just been a little more sneaky. As it was, though, he made just about every mistake you can imagine in carrying out the crime, and now police are on his trail.

The fire happened Oct. 11, 2005, at the Houston house White had owned for five years. When the fire was put out, investigators found racial slurs painted on 14 walls and thought it was a hate crime — sure, the spray-painted swastikas were backward and the racial slogans were misspelled, but you know how slipshod the public school system can be these days. But what was odd about the fire was that neighbors reported seeing White empty the house of everything — appliances, blinds, landscaping rocks, even light bulbs — the day before the house burned. The blinds and refrigerator were found at White's girlfriend's house, as was a box of eight bathroom light bulbs White reportedly removed pre-fire. And at the house, trained dogs found the scent of gasoline everywhere. "Everything you could do wrong he did wrong. Everything you shouldn't do, he did do," Harris County senior fire investigator Dustin Deutsch said.

According to authorities, White owed back taxes, insurance and mortgage payments and homeowner's fees at the time of the fire. His plan paid off initially: His mortgage was paid off and he got about $10,000 in insurance money, but after a while, investigators put two and two together and charged White with arson, which he denied. The problem now: No one's sure where White is. He got away from police in early November and hasn't been arrested yet.