A Pennsylvania man was charged on Monday with blowing up his house in Plum with his family inside.
Jacob Rabb faces several counts of attempted criminal homicide, aggravate arson, endangering persons, and other crimes, WTAE reports.
A criminal complaint says that Rabb, wife, Laura Petty, and their three young sons were all in the home on the night of April 22, 2022, when it abruptly exploded.
Rabb, Petty, and their two younger children, who were 6 and 2 at the time, escaped. Their older son, 11, was playing video games in the basement and crawled out a window. He suffered first degree burns.
It’s not clear why it took nearly four years to bring charges, especially after Petty found two notes in the kitchen, one of which said, “P.S. I did blow up the house.” The other note said in part, “If I can’t have her no one will or my kids … ” according to WTAE. It’s not clear when those notes were found.
Rabb and Petty separated in December 2022, and she filed a protection order against him in May 2023. Weeks later, he violated the protection order and threatened Petty with a knife.
The affidavit filed in the case says that investigators believe Rabb manually disconnected the gas connection on the home’s dryer on three occasions, including the day of the explosion. And in fact, Rabb’s father told police that his son admitted his responsibility for the explosion, tthe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review said.
Petty actually credited Rabb with saving the family at the time
“I don’t remember anything,” she said. “I don’t remember hearing a blast or feeling the blast or anything. I woke up in bed with the roof collapsed on me. I was super disoriented. If it wasn’t for (Rabb), we wouldn’t have made it out.
The blast caused thousands of dollars in damage to nearby homes, the complaint said. The lot has remained vacant since the explosion.
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[Featured image: WTAE screenshot. Inset: Jacob Rabb/family via Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]
