SAN MARCOS, Texas (Talk1370.com) -- Nearly five years after a blaze ripped through a San Marcos apartment complex killing five people, City of San Marcos officials announced on Wednesday that an arrest has been made in the case.
30-year old Jacobe Ferguson, a former resident of the Iconic Village Apartments, is currently in the Hays County Jail on a first-degree felony charge of arson causing serious injury.
Ferguson was arrested early Wednesday in south Austin, officials said.
A combined reward of $110,000 had been offered for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the case. Members of an investigative task force formed in October 2022 have spent the last nine months reviewing evidence and interviews from witnesses.
Fire Marshal Jonathan Henderson said no other arrests are anticipated, but investigators are continuing their work with the Hays County District Attorney's office - and whether additional charges could be filed against Ferguson.
Henderson said no specific tip led to Ferguson's arrest this week - only the task force reviewing past evidence and witness interviews. He said the task force brought a "new perspective and a fresh set of eyes" to the case.
In addition to San Marcos officials, the Houston field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Hays County District Attorney's Office, the Hays County Justice of the Peace, and the Texas Department of Public Safety's Texas Rangers were also present at the news conference.
Roughly 200 residents were displaced by the early morning fire on July 20, 2018, with several injured and five people killed - Dru Estes, 20, of San Antonio; Belinda Moats, 21, of Big Wells; Haley Michele Frizzell, 19, of San Angelo; David Angel Ortiz, 21, of Pasadena; and James Phillip Miranda, 23, of Mount Pleasant.
A sixth victim, 20-year-old Zachary Sutterfield of San Angelo, survived the fire but suffered third-degree burns covering nearly 70 percent of his body. Several others were also injured in the blaze.
In November 2018, officials said that investigators had determined the fire was incendiary and had been intentionally set; in 2021, investigators revealed that an accelerant was believed to have been used to ignite the fire.
The apartment building was originally built in the 1970s, and did not have a sprinkler system. The burned out building was demolished in January 2019.
