Man Sought After Fire in Basement Marijuana Farm
A 28-year-old Redondo Beach man is being sought in connection with a Thursday morning fire that engulfed a basement where 30 burned marijuana plants were found.
Sgt. Joe Leonardi of the Redondo Beach Police Department said the man fled. The man, whose name was withheld, reportedly had concocted an elaborate story to persuade his mother to close the basement of her home on Hill Lane.
“He told his parent that he was seeing the image of an old man in the basement and it bothered him, so she let him board up the basement,” Leonardi said. “He would enter the basement through his bedroom closet, dropping down from a ladder.”
The fire was apparently started when a growing lamp fell onto some burlap, igniting it and the plants. The blaze was contained to the basement by Redondo Beach Fire Department. All of the plants were destroyed.
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