Drifter Who Set Fires Is Sent to Mental Hospital

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A drifter who confessed to setting fire to churches in Florida, Tennessee and Colorado was found innocent by reason of insanity Monday and ordered committed to a federal mental hospital.

U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul said the evidence showed that Patrick Lee Frank, 42, had set the 17 Florida church fires listed in a federal indictment.

He was charged with burning buildings engaged in interstate commerce, and ministers testified about church materials that crossed state lines.

The fires caused more than $10 million in damages and destroyed some landmarks.

Doctors have said Frank suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He was “unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his acts,” the judge said.

Frank also is charged in indictments issued in Jacksonville, Fla., and in Chattanooga, Tenn., near his hometown of East Ridge, but was not formally charged in Colorado.

Federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent William T. McFarland testified that Frank gave written and oral confessions.

He also testified that Frank said churches “were causing him to have homosexual urges that he didn’t want. Churches also gave him strong urges to steal cars and slash tires.”