Police: Mableton man started fire that killed two people, five cats and a dog
Mar. 22—A Mableton man has been arrested for arson and murder, accused of starting a deadly house fire last week in south Cobb.
Robert Colt Smith, 30, is accused by police of starting a vehicle fire which spread to a home on Janet Lane, off Veterans Memorial Highway, causing the death of two people and six animals.
Michele LaCroix, 74, and Andrea Nall, 52, died of injuries sustained in the fire, the Cobb County Police Department said.
Smith is also facing assault and battery charges, accused of attacking his girlfriend on two occasions in February. The girlfriend (not LaCroix or Nall) lived at the home which burned down, according to arrest warrants.
Cobb police and Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services responded to a reported fire on Sunday, March 12 around 5:34 a.m., police said in a statement. Inside the burning home, firefighters found and removed LaCroix and Nall. The two women were taken to Wellstar Cobb Hospital, where they eventually died.
Five cats and a dog were killed in the fire, according to arrest warrants.
Police believe the fire began when Smith set fire to a 2002 Honda CRV parked near the house on Janet Lane, per the warrants. The fire spread to the home, and also spread to a nearby 2006 Ford Freestar, which was also destroyed.
Police accuse Smith of attacking his girlfriend on Feb. 13, and again on Feb. 26.
In the first incident, the woman told police she and Smith had gone out before returning to her home, the house on Janet Lane. Both of them were "heavily intoxicated," per the warrants.
The two of them got into a dispute, but the girlfriend did not remember details the next day, per the warrants. When she woke up, she was bleeding, had bruises on her face and chest, and an eye that was swollen shut. Smith had left, so she called him.
"He claimed that he remembered waking up to the Victim shaking him to have him come to bed, and he believed that he mistook this for being attacked and started fighting; though he claimed he 'blacked out' during the incident and did not remember the physical details of the altercation," police wrote in a warrant.
In the second incident, Smith is accused of punching the same woman in the face repeatedly, causing bruises and the tissue around her eye to "swell to the point she lost vision," and of strangling her "to the point she nearly lost consciousness" at a home off Whitlock Avenue in Marietta.
Smith was investigated by Cobb police, Cobb Fire and Emergency Services and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
For the fire, Smith has been charged with two counts of murder, three counts of arson and aggravated cruelty to animals.
For the two incidents in February, he faces aggravated assault and aggravated battery charges.
Smith was arrested on Sunday, March 19, according to jail records, and is being held at the Cobb jail. He is not eligible for bond.
