By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
A tipline and DNA evidence led to the arrest of two men Sunday in connection with 10 church arsons and three attempted church break-ins in east Texas since Jan. 1, the Dallas Morning News reported.
The paper reported that Daniel George McAllister, 21, of Ben Wheeler and Jason Robert Bourque, 19, of Lindale were being held in the Smith County Jail in Tyler in lieu of $10 million bail each.
ATF, in a press release, said that the East Texas Church Arson Task Force investigators had been working on the case.
“The arsons in these communities have been devastating but the citizens have been resilient and aided each other and the investigation,” Robert Champion, special agent in charge of the ATF division in Dallas said in a statement.
“Cooperation is the cornerstone to successful investigations and here in East Texas it is no different,” he said. “ATF has been a proud partner in this case. We had over 70 agents, both local and members of two National Response Teams working on this investigation since the beginning.”
