BRISTOL TOWNSHIP
Police said Cynthia Efaw set fire to a rental property she owned to collect insurance money. But witnesses said she was at her store during the time investigators claimed she started the blaze. February 7, 2002
It was two days before Christmas and Cathleen Finnegan was shopping to beat the clock. She said she spent more than two hours inside the Almost Free Thrift Shop in Bristol Township, combing over every last article of clothing in the store. People came and went while she was shopping, Finnegan said, but store owner Cynthia Efaw remained behind the counter. Finnegan's testimony, which came yesterday during Efaw's arson trial in Bucks County court in Doylestown Borough, counters prosecutors' claims that Efaw was the person who set fire to 29 Cornflower Lane. A fire gutted the home, a rental property owned by Efaw and rented by her daughter, on Dec. 23, 1995. Police said Efaw set the fire to collect an $88,000 insurance payoff. They claim witnesses saw her flee the home shortly before the blaze broke out. No one was injured in the fire. Efaw, 46, of Bristol Township, is charged with arson, recklessly endangering another person and insurance fraud. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison. Efaw, a businesswoman who owns several homes throughout Levittown, was arrested in 1997 following a seven-month grand jury investigation into the blaze. The trial was delayed by appeals to the state Superior and Supreme courts. At issue was whether prosecutors could use information collected by Efaw's insurance company against her at trial. The state Supreme Court ruled against Efaw in June. Prosecutors allege that Efaw set the blaze by piling clothes onto a lit electric stove, then fleeing the house. She has pleaded not guilty and denies any involvement in the fire. In court yesterday, Finnegan and pharmacist Michael Hriciniak - who owns the Bucks County Pharmacy, next door to Efaw's shop - both said Efaw and her vehicle were at the store during the time police said the blaze was started. Both said Efaw is an upstanding member of the community who is well liked and trusted. Hriciniak even went into a business partnership with Efaw while she was under investigation to purchase the building his drugstore was in. The trial continues today before Bucks County Judge John Rufe, who is deciding the case without a jury. Efaw remains free on bail. |