Watch CBS News

Oakland Park Church Fire May Have Been Arson

Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter

FT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) - Investigators are looking into a case of suspected arson and messages of hate after a fire at a church in an Oakland Park strip mall.

When Oakland Park Fire Rescue arrived at the Los Arcos Plaza at 2500 W. Oakland Park Boulevard a little after 6 a.m. they found smoke coming from the Refuge Life Community Church and a neighboring business - a beauty salon.

Firefighters found a small fire in the back of the church and quickly extinguished it. On the back door, they found an ominous message "I waited so long to repay the favor. Call the police and Naomi is dead! Boom!!!"

There were more than a dozen other other messages scrawled on the walls inside the church. Many are so crude, we can't repeat them.  One is threatening saying,  "In 6 days I will burn this place to the ground lol."

"I can say in my investigative eight years with this department I have not seen a crime like this one," said Oakland Park Fire Rescue Deputy Division Chief John Preston. "I've investigated many arson cases but not one of this nature with this amount of writing on the wall."

Preston saoid he doesn't know what the writing on the door means but there were 16 more inside, some with messages of hate.

"Some of them are religious in reference, they relate to religion and hatred toward religion and other more personal, as you can see by the back door, the name one person, there are additional people named on the inside," said Preston.

The question now is what's the significance of the people who are mentioned by name.

"We have not located any of those people," said Preston. "We have spoken to the pastor of this church and he had said does not know anybody by any of the names that are referenced on the writings on the walls."

Pastor Len Ebel said the church is relatively new, it has only been open for a couple of months and has about 40 members.

"I feel really bad because I don't know why somebody would do that," said Ebel.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.