A lesbian couple scrawled homophobic abuse on their garage before burning down their own house in Tennessee then calling it a hate crime, a court ruled.
Carol Ann and Laura Jean Stutte reduced their own house to a pile of charred rubble in September 2010 and branded their neighbor a homophobe in order to get the $276,000 insurance pay out.
But insurers American National Property and Casualty Company caught on to the ruse and accused the couple of faking the fire.
A federal jury ruled in favor of the insurance company and they will not have to pay out on the insurance claim on the house in Venore, reports the Knoxville News Sentinel.
The court heard how the couple spray-painted the word ‘queers’ on their garage and later blamed their neighbor Janice Millsaps.
They claimed that, a month before the blaze, Millsaps said: ‘Do you know what is better than one dead queer? Two dead queers.’
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/...ce-money-claims-neighbor-committed-hate-crime
Carol Ann and Laura Jean Stutte reduced their own house to a pile of charred rubble in September 2010 and branded their neighbor a homophobe in order to get the $276,000 insurance pay out.
But insurers American National Property and Casualty Company caught on to the ruse and accused the couple of faking the fire.
A federal jury ruled in favor of the insurance company and they will not have to pay out on the insurance claim on the house in Venore, reports the Knoxville News Sentinel.
The court heard how the couple spray-painted the word ‘queers’ on their garage and later blamed their neighbor Janice Millsaps.
They claimed that, a month before the blaze, Millsaps said: ‘Do you know what is better than one dead queer? Two dead queers.’
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/...ce-money-claims-neighbor-committed-hate-crime
