Solicitation Of Arson Charge Linked To Long-Running Feud

A shelter manager was accused of trying to hire someone to burn a house in a feud with her brother’s girlfriend.

Franklin County Prosecutor Steve Lowe on Friday formally charged 52-year-old Liz Thayer of first-degree solicitation of arson. Thayer is the general manager of the Tri-City Union Gospel Mission.

Thayer is accused of offering $500 to Clinton Crowder, a former cook at the shelter, to set fire to a house in Pasco she had sold to her brother’s girlfriend.

Court documents indicate Crowder never acted on the offer and agreed to cooperate in a two-month undercover police investigation.

“I didn’t think she was that serious,” Crowder said of Thayer’s alleged offer. “By the end of January, she got very serious. She wanted it done. She offered money.”

Thayer has declined comment.

Prosecutors and witnesses say the alleged scheme is likely the result of a long-running feud between Thayer and Nancy Pickens, who bought the house from her.

When Pickens moved out and began renting the house, Thayer felt she deserved a cut of the proceeds, they said.

The house was donated to the mission in 1990 and had served as a shelter.