MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A mother and her four-year-old daughter spent Christmas day without presents and without a home after their U of M area house went up in flames.
Bonnie Davis claims her ex-boyfriend, Carmichael Johnson, set the fire and said it’s not his first time doing this.
Davis said the fire originated in her car parked in a carport at her Spottswood Avenue home in the early hours of Friday morning.
“He definitely intended to do it while I was in the house, because it’s not very often that I would leave out at midnight,” said Davis.
Davis and Johnson haven’t been together in more than a year, but she says that hasn’t stopped his constant torrent of harassing text messages.
“I text him, ‘You set my house on fire!’ He says, ‘Oh, now you can text back,” said Davis.
WREG obtained a police report Davis filed earlier this month after she said Johnson slashed her tires.
She also claims he put sugar in her gas tank.
This is the second time she said he’s set fire to a house she was living in. The other time was in 2015.
“He burned down the first house, because he cheated on me. I found out he cheated on me, and I set his clothes on fire on the barbecue grill,” said Davis.
It’s not immediately clear why Johnson would have set this second home on fire.
A woman who answered the door at his listed address claimed she had never heard of him.
“It keeps ringing in my head that he always gets the last laugh,” said Davis.
But WREG discovered Johnson has a storied criminal history, including two active warrants for drugs, vandalism, and filing a false report.
“I’m going to end up in a box before they start looking. That’s what I believe,” said Davis.
WREG has reached to the Memphis Fire Department to see if they are investigating Friday’s fire as a case of arson. They said they would get back to us Wednesday.
