A second arrest was made Monday morning in connection with the Oct. 20 fire at the home of former Gov. Hulett C. Smith (1918-2012), now owned by Gov. Jim Justice’s family.
Billy Ray Workman, 24, was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree arson and conspiracy.
Workman was booked into Southern Regional Jail at 11 a.m. Monday after turning himself in to officials in the Raleigh County Judicial Center.
Also facing charges related to the incident is David W. Cole, 30.
Cole was arrested Oct. 25 by West Virginia State Fire Marshal officers and charged with first-degree arson and conspiracy to commit a felony, according to Robbie Bailey, chief deputy state fire marshal.
Cole and Workman are being held on a $100,000 cash bond.
The investigation is ongoing and an additional arrest is expected, Bailey said.
The alarm came into the Mabscott Fire Department just after 9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, for the Crestview Drive property on Harper Road, according to Assistant Chief Ray Palmer, and was still smoldering the following afternoon.
The second and third floors of the abandoned structure were fully engulfed by the time firefighters arrived on scene, Palmer said.
Bradley/ Prosperity and Sophia Area fire departments also responded to the three-alarm fire.
It was the second time Mabscott Fire Department had responded to a fire at the same location in the past three weeks, according to officials.
The West Virginia Fire Marshal’s Office was on scene throughout the week.
Sitting on a hilltop overlooking Beckley, the fading structure was scheduled to be torn down the same week it was destroyed by fire, Raleigh County Commissioner Daniel Hall said.
Hall said the commission approved two contracts concerning the property during their Oct. 14 meeting – one for asbestos abatement and the second for demolition. He said the owners – the Justice family – had been notified of the contracts and that a lien would be placed on the property in order for the commission to recoup the costs.
Smith, a Beckley native, served as West Virginia’s 27th governor, from 1965 until 1969.
He reportedly moved from the four-story mansion to an Arizona assisted living facility in 2011 due to failing health.
The property was then acquired by Gov. Jim Justice’s family-owned Bellwood Corporation.
Unoccupied for several years, the once elegant, Colonial Revival-style home was built in 1953, but had been vandalized to the point of near destruction in recent years.
Vandals and squatters had littered the four stories and three-car garage with mountains of garbage, using spray paint to defile the walls and built-in wooden cabinetry with obscene images and other graffiti, knocking holes in the walls, and destroying what remained inside the structure.
Smith’s possessions, including furniture, signed paintings, autographed photographs, along with rare election collectibles, were auctioned prior to his death in a “living estate sale.”
Initially, Bellwood Corporation had been seeking to develop the Smith parcel along with the nearby Briar Patch Golf Course, also owned by the Justice family, into a mix of commercial, retail and professional spaces, single-family homes, multi-family apartment complexes and senior living facilities and a nine-hole golf course.
In 2021, Bellwood Corporation sought a $19.5 million TIF (tax increment financing) district for 30 years for both properties, which was denied in 2023.
A TIF is a public financing method that allows a developer to forego payment of taxes in order to develop a blighted area and grow the local economy. In theory, the money is used to develop the property.
Smith, the second Beckleyan in West Virginia history to be elected governor, died at the age of 93 in Arizona.
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