Fowler
A rural Franklin man is charged with arson of his wife’s business, which caught fire in April 2023.
Chad A. Fowler, 47, was booked Saturday on a warrant for arson as a Level 4 Felony. He was released on $1,200 bond the same day and is supposed to appear for an initial hearing Sept. 23.
The fire occurred at around midnight on April 21, 2023, at a modular trailer parked outside Powerhouse Athletics, 400 N. Forsythe St. Unit 2, Franklin. Charges for the incident were filed in Johnson County Superior Court 3 on July 30 of this year after a lengthy investigation.
The Indiana Secretary of State’s business database lists Fowler as the CEO of Powerhouse Athletics, a baseball training facility that is not officially affiliated with a school team. The trailer where the fire occurred was a rented trailer where his wife, Rachel Fowler, operated a screen printing business, according to court documents.
The couple told Franklin Police they left their respective businesses at about 9:22 p.m. on April 20, 2023. However, Fowler told police he checked cameras remotely and realized he left the lights on at Powerhouse. So, he returned to the business a few minutes before midnight to turn them off. At this time, he also reported he turned off lights at his wife’s business before returning home, court documents say.
Video footage from nearby business Radwell International provided police with a different view of the scene. Cameras show a dark pickup truck pulling into Powerhouse at 11:56 p.m. April 20, 2023. There were no lights showing in the trailer when the truck arrived, the affidavit says.
At 12:04 a.m. April 21, 2023, the camera shows the truck pulling out of the parking lot and a glow inside the trailer’s windows. The video recording also captures the fire spreading, with smoke and flames coming out of the windows and door at 12:07 a.m.
Fowler, nor anyone else, immediately reported the fire. Fowler and his wife did report the fire to Johnson County 911 on April 23, 2023, court documents say.
During questioning from Franklin police, Fowler said he didn’t set the fire and the trailer wasn’t on fire when he exited it. He told police his wife had a print job running when she left that day, but that’s common and he didn’t think it would have caused the fire.
He further said there wouldn’t be an advantage to setting the fire and he expects to take a $10,000 to $12,000 loss from it, court documents say.
For the physical investigation, Franklin fire investigators gathered electronic parts of the printing operation and also had an accelerant-sniffing dog sweep the trailer. The dog didn’t detect any accelerant, the affidavit says.
Investigators submitted evidence to Midwest Forensics & Associates on Aug. 30, 2023 and received a report that pinpointed the origin of the fire to the area near a folding table and a wooden shelf on the west end of the trailer. Fire patterns show it spread from that area, with the video footage from Radwell also indicating the fire was first visible in the same area, court documents show.
Though the fire broke out near several appliances, Midwest Forensics ruled an electrical fire as unlikely, based on consultation with an electrical engineer. The only cause that could not be ruled out is open flame incendiary, the affidavit says.
An incendiary fire is one that has been deliberately ignited under circumstances in which the person knows the fire should not be ignited, according to fire experts.
Police also spoke to the operations manager for the building that Fowler rents for Powerhouse and was informed he was about $30,000 behind on rent as of Sept. 2023. The manager also reported it had cost about $20,000 to tear down the trailer and reseed the grass that had burned around it.
Fowler also had multiple tax warrants from the past three years, court documents say.
A request for comment to Powerhouse Athletics wasn’t immediately returned Tuesday.
