Shelby County inmate pleads guilty to setting fire to cell
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Prosecutors say a Shelby County penal farm inmate has pleaded guilty to arson for using toilet paper and disciplinary reports to set a fire in his cell.
The Shelby County district attorney’s office says Clarence Spiller was scheduled to go on trial this week in Memphis, but he pleaded guilty Tuesday and was sentenced to seven years in prison. The sentence will run consecutively to the four-year sentence he received in 2012 for attempted voluntary manslaughter for wounding a man in a robbery attempt.
Investigators say Spiller broke the sprinkler in his cell and then started the fire using bed linens, copies of his Inmate Disciplinary Infraction reports and toilet paper in February 2013.
There were 41 other inmates and three employees nearby, but no one was injured.
