Jeep Owner Torches Car Dealership Because He Bought A Lemon 36 Years Ago

Car dealers beware – any dodgy car dealings could come back to haunt you… One disgruntled ex-customer of the O’Daniel Automart in Indiana recently set fire to the car dealership because of a car it sold him 36 years prior.

O’Daniel Automart allegedly sold Dewey Fredrick a Jeep in 1986 which he claims had a faulty engine, and that the dealership ‘refused to make it right’. It’s not the first time Fredrick sought his revenge – during the ‘80s he also tried to glue several of the dealership’s cars’ doors shut.

CCTV footage of 79-year-old Dewey Fredrick shows him pulling up in his pickup to the first dealership’s lot in Fort. Wayne, Indiana. He started the fire by opening the fuel door on a Jeep Compass and sticking a road flare into the opening, before torching another car on a neighbouring dealership’s lot.

The flames soon engulf a GMC Acadia and Jeep Cherokee parked either side of the Compass before the arsonist makes his way to a neighbouring Mazda dealership (not caught on camera) and inflicts more damage on an innocent Pontiac Solstice.

Fredrick cuts a hole into the top of the Solstice and drops in another flare, sending it up in flames. It’s not clear why he set out to damage a car from the neighbouring dealership, but the 36-year-old feud clearly had the man in a blind rage, so he might not even know himself. Fredrick caused nearly $85,000 worth of damage in total.

When confronted and shown the CCTV footage by police, Fredrick reportedly admitted to everything and was initially sad he didn’t get to see the fire he started. When investigators showed him footage of the blaze, Fredrick had no remorse, stating ‘oh, that [sucker] was cooking wasn’t it?’

Fredrick was charged with four counts of arson and the 79-year-old could face 48 years in prison. That didn’t seem to phase him though – when investigators told him that the dealership wasn’t happy about what he did, Fredrick simply laughed.