Man's mental state questioned in Plant City arson that killed 4

Yahoo

14-05-2025

PLANT CITY — The 911 call came in a little after midnight July 31.
Shawn Gossett sounded childlike and scared. He directed dispatchers to a 5-acre plot off County Line Road near Plant City, where a mobile home was being devoured by flames.
'It's out of control,' Gossett said. 'There's people in the house.'
Gossett, 25, who has intellectual disabilities, said he didn't know what started the fire.
'The thing is when it started, I had forgot that something was burning because I didn't smell it at the time,' he said. 'And I got bitched — and I just got yelled at because it wasn't my fault.'
A recording of Gossett's words is among a heap of records, including more than 300 pages of documents, recently released by the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office.
Prosecutors say he intentionally started the fire, which killed four people who shared the home with him. The records create the most detailed, albeit incomplete, portrait to date of a case that has been complicated by questions about Gossett's mental state and whether he is capable of understanding the court process.
Last fall, his defense attorney asked a judge to dismiss the case, arguing that Gossett is so developmentally disabled that he can't face trial. State prosecutors disagree. They believe he can be restored to competency, and they want him committed to a secure hospital until he can return to court.
Firefighters and sheriff's deputies pulled up to the property near the Polk County line shortly before 12:30 a.m. Gossett stood barefoot in the grass, clutching a drawstring bag, a yellow Labrador named Buster beside him as flames devoured the mobile home. He watched as fire trucks pulled up and firefighters brought out the big hoses to attack the blaze. The roof collapsed.
By the time the fire was out, it had consumed nearly all of the double-wide and a detached shed. In a southeast bedroom, firefighters found Jessica Bowman, 26, and her brother, Joseph Clites, 48, lying face-down on the floor. They found Jessica's mother, Judy Foster, 70, near a living room, and Jessica's husband, Chase Bowman, 30, in another bedroom, lying beneath a couch and a dresser.
Their cause of death was determined to be smoke inhalation and thermal injuries.
In the master bedroom, firefighters also found the remains of four dogs, one of them in a crate.
Deputies learned that Gossett had been staying at the home for about two years after moving out of his father's home.
He stayed in what was called a 'Florida room' in a police report, but it was little more than an enclosed front porch with a bed, a filing cabinet and other items.
As firefighters worked the scene, deputies placed Gossett in the back of a patrol car.
He told deputies he was on the phone with friends when the fire started. He said he thought it came from his window air conditioner. Panicked, he went to tell Chase and Jessica. He said someone told him to get water. He said Joseph Clites awoke, walked outside and yelled at him before going back into the house and closing the door behind him.
He said he'd grabbed some athletic shoes, a mouth guard, batting gloves, sunglasses and his bag and walked away from the house before calling 911. He took Buster with him.
Hours after the blaze, a fire investigator examined the charred wreckage. Burn patterns were most intense at the home's northern end, in the area of the enclosed front porch that served as Gossett's bedroom.
A V-shaped damage pattern on a two-drawer cabinet pointed toward the room's center. It was there, between the cabinet on one side and charred bedsprings on the other, that the fire began, the investigator concluded.
Amid the debris were a charred Plant City High School yearbook, a fan, a burned blanket, paper from a cigarette carton and a spring from a handheld lighter.
In the hours after the fire, Gossett spoke at length with deputies while seated in a patrol vehicle. The investigators later noted that he was unclear about many details.
He'd been told for most of his life that he had ADHD, anxiety and bipolar disorder, but was not diagnosed because 'he does not like doctors,' a deputy wrote in a report. He said he was prescribed medication but had stopped taking it.
He was adopted when he was 5 years old. He'd attended Plant City High School. He knew Jessica Bowman from the Special Olympics in Plant City, where he played flag football. Long before the fire, he'd moved in with her and her family, but they wouldn't let him stay in the main part of the home.
He said he'd been playing with a plastic lighter when his blanket accidentally caught fire. Some details of what Gossett said are redacted from the sheriff's reports. But an arrest affidavit states that he changed his story.
He said he didn't want to live at the home anymore, but Foster wouldn't let him leave because she was the payee for his disability checks, according to the report.
He'd been thinking about setting the fire all day, according to the affidavit. He didn't want to kill them, he said, but wanted to scare them. He knew if the house burned down, he could move back in with his father. He described lighting a paper towel and a box and watching the flames spread as the fan blew, according to the affidavit.
In the weeks that followed, detectives spoke with several people who were close with Gossett. His father, Clyde Gossett, said he didn't believe his son was mentally disabled, but said he would bite and kick when he got angry, according to a sheriff's report. He once had to restrain him and call police.
He also said he had to remind his son to be gentle with the family dog because he would squeeze it so hard it would yelp. He believed something had to have happened for Gossett to 'snap.'
A young woman who was friends with both Gossett and Jessica Bowman said he 'became mean' in high school and bullied her and others. In a written statement to detectives, she said Gossett hit five dogs in the head until they cried. She also wrote that Bowman told her Gossett wanted to kill her, her husband and the dogs.
She went on to write that Bowman showed her a bruise where Gossett hit her. She wrote that Bowman asked her not to tell anyone because she was scared of Gossett.
He was jealous of her relationship with Chase Bowman, she wrote, and didn't 'want to die alone.' She also wrote that shortly before the fire, Gossett had asked her to help him find a girlfriend.
Since late July, Gossett has lingered in jail as lawyers and doctors assess his mental condition.
A pair of psychological experts who examined him determined that he has neurocognitive, intellectual and emotional dysfunctions. His IQ was pegged between 55 and 65, which is indicative of intellectual disability. His mental capacity renders him incapable of understanding the charges against him or the court processes, according to the defense.
His condition, the experts said, is permanent.
State prosecutors, though, cited a third expert, who pegged Gossett's IQ at 72, in the borderline range. That expert opined Gossett could be restored to competency within three to six months if given proper training.
In a court paper, Assistant State Attorney Katherine Fand wrote that Gossett 'was able to clearly articulate what occurred' to investigators and apologized for lying.
A judge is set to hear arguments on the dismissal request Friday.