A woman in Missouri is facing charges for second-degree arson after she allegedly set her house on fire when she found a big spider inside it.
The woman, Alexcia Berry, was arrested in Kansas City after a resident sent surveillance footage to police officers which led them to track her down.
Berry apparently admitted to authorities she had set fire to the house, but blamed a spider for driving her to do it.
According to reports, the house may have been used for drug activity.
A resident, known as Damon, told news station KCTV, via Aol:
You keep hearing rumors about drug addicts left and right, and we have been trying to keep it clear, but it ain’t nothing we can do for real.
An investigation carried out by KCTV also reportedly revealed the house in question was on Kansas City’s dangerous building list. Authorities had apparently tried to contact the homeowners twice, though had not received a response.
Local Damon claimed he had seen a number of fires break out at the house, and said he was glad law enforcement were able to apprehend the person responsible for the most recent fire.
He added:
I’m glad someone did record it to catch one of those idiots — know what I’m saying — because that got to stop.
According to officers, Berry admitted to starting the fire, and is now facing charges for second degree arson.
In other spider news, a woman reportedly drove her van into a river after seeing a spider in her lap.
As reported by NBC News, the unidentified woman was reversing her Kia van down a boat ramp to put her kayak in a river in Kingston, Georgia, earlier this summer when she looked down at her knees and spotted an unexpected visitor.
According to reports, the woman swiftly jumped out of her van, forgetting to put the handbrake on in the process, meaning her vehicle carried on rolling down the hill and straight into the river. It apparently floated downstream a little way before becoming ‘totally submerged’ – the van, not the spider.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.