Present: All the Justices 

ROBERT WAYNE HICKSON, JR. 

v. Record No. 982618 OPINION BY JUSTICE CYNTHIA D. KINSER 

 September 17, 1999 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

 The defendant, Robert Wayne Hickson, Jr., was 

convicted of arson in a bench trial in the Circuit Court of 

Montgomery County.1 In an unpublished opinion, the Court of 

Appeals found sufficient evidence to support the conviction 

and affirmed the judgment of the circuit court. We granted 

the defendant this appeal in which he again challenges the 

sufficiency of the evidence. Because we conclude that the 

evidence fails, as a matter of law, to establish that the 

defendant was the person who committed the arson, we will 

reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 

FACTS 

A mobile home in which Charles Michael Eastridge, 

Judith Eastridge, and Samantha Ray Thompson (the 

Eastridges) lived was destroyed by fire on August 10, 1995. 

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 The circuit court found the defendant guilty pursuant 

to Code § 18.2-77. In pertinent part, that section 

prohibits the malicious burning of any dwelling house or 

manufactured home. The court sentenced the defendant to 

five years incarceration, with three years and six months 

suspended. 
Their home was located in Elliston, behind a post office, 

across railroad tracks, and near a river. It was situated 

approximately one-half mile from Route 460 "[b]y the way a 

crow flies." 

Norman Croy, a Deputy Sheriff Investigator with the 

Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, investigated the fire. 

Croy discovered a red gasoline container at the rear of the 

mobile home approximately six feet from the steps that led 

up to the porch. Croy testified that the container smelled 

like gasoline and that a "minute amount" of gasoline 

remained in the container. He also discovered a “flammable 

liquid pour pattern” on the wooden back porch steps and 

detected a gasoline odor in the soil underneath those 

steps. Thus, Croy concluded that the fire started on those 

steps as a result of gasoline having been poured on them 

and ignited.2

According to Croy, when a fire, such as the one in the 

present case, is first ignited, there is a "flash" 

accompanied by a "[v]ery audible" "whooshing sound." 

However, he did not believe that the "whooshing sound" 

could have been heard from a distance of one-half mile. 

 2

 Through his investigation, Croy ruled out possible 

accidental causes of the fire. 

2
 The Commonwealth’s evidence linking the defendant to 

the fire was circumstantial. Gary Hall Spence testified 

that he and the defendant met at a campground in Radford on 

or about August 10, 1995. Spence stated, "To the best of 

my recollection I can’t swear on the date." While at the 

campground, Spence heard the defendant say that somebody 

owed him money. 

Spence and the defendant left the campground sometime 

between 8:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. and went riding around the 

Elliston area. At an unspecified time during their 

journey, the pair stopped at a house to look at the 

defendant’s race car. When Spence was asked what they did 

after seeing the race car, he responded, "[W]e rode down on 

[Route] 460 I guess it was and stopped on the side of the 

road." After the defendant got out of the car, Spence 

"heard the trunk lid open." Spence did not know where the 

defendant went at that point, but Spence later heard an 

explosion and saw flames "[o]ff to [his] left hand side." 

After the defendant got back into the car, he and Spence 

returned to the campground. Spence testified that the 

defendant made some kind of reference to a fire. 

On cross-examination, Spence admitted that he had a 

"pretty good buzz on" from the beer he had been drinking 

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earlier that night. He stated, "I was drunk[.] I can 

drink 12 beers and still not be drunk." 

 Michelle Nicole Price, a neighbor of the Eastridges, 

testified that, while she was walking her dog on the 

morning of the day that the mobile home burned, she 

observed a "white" car stop in front of the Eastridges’ 

yard.3 She then heard someone yelling and thought that she 

also heard rocks being thrown at a sign. Price believed 

that the individual was a man, but she could neither see 

what the person was doing nor hear what the individual was 

yelling. She also thought that there was a second person 

in the car but could not ascertain whether that individual 

was a man or a woman. 

STANDARD OF REVIEW 

When, after being convicted of a crime, a defendant 

challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, this Court must 

view the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Commonwealth and accord the evidence all reasonable 

inferences fairly deducible from it. Horton v. 

Commonwealth, 255 Va. 606, 608, 499 S.E.2d 258, 259 (1998). 

Since the defendant in this case was convicted by a trial 

court sitting without a jury, the trial court’s judgment is 

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entitled to the same weight as a jury verdict and will not 

be disturbed on appeal unless it is “plainly wrong or 

without evidence to support it.” King v. Commonwealth, 217 

Va. 601, 604, 231 S.E.2d 312, 315 (1977); Code § 8.01-680. 

However, "it is just as obligatory upon the appellate 

court, to set aside . . . the judgment of a court, when it 

is, in its opinion, contrary to the law and evidence, and 

therefore plainly wrong, as it is to sustain it when the 

reverse is true." Bland v. Commonwealth, 177 Va. 819, 821, 

13 S.E.2d 317, 317 (1941). 

ANALYSIS 

"Arson is a crime of stealth" and "[t]he proof is 

often necessarily circumstantial." Cook v. Commonwealth, 

226 Va. 427, 432, 309 S.E.2d 325, 329 (1983). 

Circumstantial evidence in a case of arson, as in every 

criminal case, can support a conviction if it sufficiently 

excludes every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. Id. at 

433, 309 S.E.2d at 329. 

 In a prosecution for arson, the Commonwealth must 

prove that “the fire was of incendiary origin and that the 

accused was a guilty agent in the burning.” Augustine v. 

Commonwealth, 226 Va. 120, 123, 306 S.E.2d 886, 888 (1983). 

 3

 During the course of his investigation, Croy learned 

that Hickson was “associated” with a “white Chevrolet 

5
The only issue in this appeal is whether the defendant was 

the "guilty agent." Id. 

 With regard to this issue, the defendant argues that 

the evidence fails to "'point unerringly'" to him as the 

person who committed the arson. Id. (quoting Poulos v. 

Commonwealth, 174 Va. 495, 499, 6 S.E.2d 666, 667 (1940)). 

He contends that the Commonwealth’s evidence, which is 

entirely circumstantial, does not exclude every reasonable 

hypothesis of innocence and that the chain of necessary 

circumstances "of motive, time, place, means, and conduct 

[do not] concur to form an unbroken chain which links [him] 

to the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Bishop v. 

Commonwealth, 227 Va. 164, 169, 313 S.E.2d 390, 393 (1984). 

Thus, he asks that his conviction be reversed. 

 In contrast, the Commonwealth argues that sufficient 

reasonable inferences flow from the evidence to prove that 

the defendant was the criminal agent in the arson. These 

inferences, according to the Commonwealth, are that the 

defendant, on the morning of the arson, argued with someone 

at the Eastridges’ home about money, later stopped at the 

spot on Route 460 nearest to the mobile home, retrieved a 

gasoline can from the rear of the car, walked the one-half 

mile to the Eastridges’ home, and set it on fire. The 

 

Chevette.” 

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Commonwealth contends that the testimony of Spence and 

Price provides a sufficient evidentiary foundation for 

these inferences. 

 After reviewing the evidence under the applicable 

standard of appellate review and considering the parties’ 

arguments, we conclude that the circumstantial evidence in 

the present case with regard to "motive, time, place, 

means, and conduct" fails "to form an unbroken chain which 

links the defendant to the crime beyond a reasonable 

doubt." Bishop, 227 Va. at 169, 313 S.E.2d at 393. We 

find numerous breaks in the chain that lead us to this 

conclusion. 

First, although Spence testified that he heard the 

defendant state that somebody owed him money, Spence 

admitted that the defendant did not say anything more 

specific about that subject. The Commonwealth contends 

that the defendant argued with someone at the Eastridges’ 

mobile home about money on the morning of the fire, but 

Price, the neighbor, did not identify the defendant as that 

person and could not hear the substance of what the 

individual was yelling. 

Next, Spence could not "swear" as to the date that he 

and the defendant were riding around the Elliston area. 

Spence also only "guess[ed]" that he and Hickson were on 

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Route 460 when they stopped on the side of the road. Even 

if Spence was correct about the road number, he never 

specified the spot on Route 460 where they stopped. The 

evidence establishes that the point on Route 460 nearest to 

the Eastridges’ mobile home was one-half mile away "[b]y 

the way a crow flies." So, assuming that they stopped at 

that point on Route 460, the defendant would have had to 

walk one-half mile to the Eastridges’ home, pour gasoline 

on the steps, ignite it, and walk one-half mile back to the 

car. But, Spence did not state anything about the length 

of time that the defendant was gone after they stopped on 

the side of the road or how much time elapsed from when he 

heard the explosion until the defendant returned to the 

car. Furthermore, Croy doubted that the sound that would 

have been produced when this fire was ignited could have 

been heard one-half mile away. 

Finally, Spence testified that he saw flames "[o]ff to 

[his] left hand side." However, the record contains no 

evidence establishing which direction Spence and the 

defendant were travelling when they stopped on Route 460. 

Thus, a trier of fact could not determine, without 

speculating, whether the flames Spence observed "[o]ff to 

[his] left hand side" originated in the area where the 

Eastridges’ mobile home was located. 

8
 Thus, we conclude that the evidence in this case is 

insufficient as a matter of law to support the defendant’s 

conviction. Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment of 

the Court of Appeals and dismiss the indictment. 

Reversed and dismissed. 

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