A Weare man who allegedly set fire to another man’s home earlier this month will go to trial on felony charges of arson and burglary and a misdemeanor charge of criminal threatening.

At the probable cause hearing for the case of Peter Walsh, 27, of 126 Abijah Road, a judge heard testimony that there may have been a sexual assault years ago that possibly led Walsh to burn down the home of Vernon Hamel, 46, at Mt. William Pond Road in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 12.

Police have been looking into previous interactions between Walsh and Hamel, said Weare Detective Louis Chatel, who in addition to prosecuting the case was also called as a witness at the hearing.

While on the stand, Chatel said Hamel has no prior convictions on his record but that police have had contact with him in the past relating to alleged cases of aggravated felonious sexual assault, lewdness and animal cruelty.

“Walsh may have been a victim of an alleged sexual assault in the past,” said state fire investigator Keith Rodenhiser on the stand, adding the claim is under investigation.

When investigators questioned Hamel’s family members, who live next door, his sister-inlaw mentioned that there had been an altercation between Walsh and Hamel in December 2007 in which Hamel was beaten.

No police reports of that incident were made, according to Chatel, but investigators are aware of a history that the sister- in-law declined to elaborate on with police, according to the affidavit.

Walsh’s defense attorney Pamela Phelan focused on the lack of hard physical evidence in the case, questioned Hamel’s state of mind and credibility in his statements to police and attempted to poke holes in Hamel’s elusive account of the incident, the sequence of which, Phelan argued, changed several times.

Phelan and co-counsel Aileen O’Connell succeeded in getting two charges of reckless conduct dropped at the probable cause hearing on Thursday, April 24, with Judge Paul Lawrence ruling the two charges did not apply in this case.

Lawrence did find that the remaining three charges should be left for a jury to decide. According to accounts from Weare police and state fire marshal investigators, Walsh allegedly went to Hamel’s home and threw two-by-fours through several windows before gaining entry into the home and eventually setting it on fire.

At one point, after Hamel succeeded in pushing Walsh back out the front door of the small, modest home, Hamel allegedly saw Walsh pointing a gun in his direction through a window.

Hamel told police and fire investigators that he extinguished a small fire in the living area of the house and that Walsh left for a period of about half an hour.

Hamel said he saw the same car Walsh had been driving, a newer model green hatchback, heading down the street toward his home. At that point, he ran to his family’s home next door, the affidavit said, and, looking back, saw his house engulfed in flames.

Rodenhiser testified at the hearing that accidental causes, which included a nearby wood stove, electrical cords and outlets were ruled out after finding no deficiencies.

A K–9 unit searched the structure for accelerants and found no traces of any flammable liquids, Rodenhiser said.

A subsequent search of Walsh’s home and property led police to the discovery of a silver .357 handgun in Walsh’s truck.

When Rodenhiser interviewed Hamel about the incident, he said on the stand, Hamel seemed evasive, looked scared and could not recall the events clearly in the sequence in which they occurred.

He also could not produce a reason for why anyone would burn his home down, Rodenhiser said.

Hamel indicated to responding officers that Walsh may have been involved, according to the supporting affidavit and probable cause testimony, but left that information out when speaking with Rodenhiser and his partner Stacey Dubois of the state Fire Marshall’s Office. Rodenhiser said both he and Dubois knew Walsh to be a person of interest from police accounts.

During another interview the following day with Dubois and Chatel, Hamel reportedly implicated Walsh as the arsonist. “Right off the bat I could tell he was not comfortable being there,” Chatel said on the stand about Hamel’s demeanor during the interview.

Little physical evidence was found at the scene except for a hammer which Hammel mentioned and described during the interview, Chatel said, that was found near a neighboring home the day after the fire, and broken glass outside the home.

The glass found outside one of the windows on the back side of the home was clean, indicating that the window had been broken prior to the fire, Rodenhiser said.

Judge Lawrence set bail on Walsh at $30,000 cash or surety.