Teen admits to setting fire to kill parents

A Liberty Township teen accused of setting his house on fire to kill his parents pleaded guilty as charged Monday in Butler County just before jury selection was scheduled to start.

Mitchell Simon was a 16-year-old junior honor student at Lakota West High School on Oct. 23, 2013, when police said he confessed to setting a fire in front of his parents' separate bedroom doors at their home on Tarragon Court after tying the doors shut.

Now 17, Simon was being tried as an adult on charges of attempted aggravated murder and aggravated arson. He had previously pleaded insanity.

He faces up to 33 years in prison when Common Pleas Judge Craig Hedric sentences Simon at 9 a.m. June 10.

His parents, Sharon and Perry Simon, escaped the blaze and have supported their son during previous court hearings.

"I'm obviously pleased he wanted to take responsibility and plead guilty for what he did," Butler County Assistant Prosecutor Josh Muennich said.

He credited Liberty Township firefighters and the Butler County sheriff's deputies "that truly kept this case from becoming more tragic by their quick actions in helping put out the fire and rescue the Simons from that house."

Earlier testimony during hearings in juvenile court indicated Simon first told a detective he was trying to kill himself but backed out when he set the fires around 11:30 p.m.

He later admitted that "he wanted to inflict as much pain as humanly possible on those who caused him to feel the way he felt about himself," according to police testimony.

Simon had kept a journal, which was displayed at the juvenile court hearing, in which he ranted about his parents, especially his mother. In the journal, he drew a picture of a house with the words "burn parents alive" underlined. Simon left the burning house in his mother's car but returned later while police and firefighters were at the scene.

At the time, Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones said Simon's plan to kill his parents was "well thought out."

Simon's lawyer, Brad Kraemer, has maintained that his client's real intention wasn't to kill his parents. Instead, he said it was to prevent the parents from stopping Simon from harming himself. ⬛