A Chula Vista woman is facing an Oct. 11 preliminary hearing on six arson or attempted arson charges involving six incidents where someone set small fires in Chula Vista.
Shirley Anne Edwards, 54, who is also known as Shirley Gentry, was arrested Aug. 5 by Chula Vista Police after the fire department responded to three separate fires that morning.
Three brush fires occurred on Aug. 5, and she is charged with attempted arson in one of them. A trash can was set on fire around 5:16 a.m. in the 200 block of Broadway and another fire was reported at 5:40 a.m. in the 300 block of Broadway. The third fire occurred in the 400 block of Broadway at 5:48 a.m. and Edwards was detained.
Chula Vista Police found Edwards in possession of a lighter and disclosed she had been a person of interest in other fires including a 2015 Thanksgiving incident in which a shed burned near a church in the 600 block of G Street.
She was found dancing in the street near the fire, and is now charged with that blaze.
Edwards is charged with burning a mattress near the Salvation Army donation center in the 300 block of Broadway on July 12 and attempting to burn down a woman’s house during an argument that same night.
On July 28, a restaurant owner objected to Gentry trying to bathe in the restroom and later that night the business door was set on fire. She is also charged with setting fire to a couch outside on July 28.
Court records show Edwards was ordered in 2015 to stay away from a nail salon and two other stores in Chula Vista after she was sentenced for misdemeanor battery of a woman.
Edwards received credit for time served with three years probation in that case and was fined $655. She has pleaded not guilty in her current case in Chula Vista Superior Court and remains in jail on $100,000 bail.
