HOUSTON – An elementary school secretary is accused of setting the campus’ office on fire in an attempt to distract school officials from questioning her about money she was suspected of stealing, according to court documents.
Adriana Castorena-Narvaez, 49, has been charged with Arson.
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According to an affidavit, it all began when school administrators at Houston Independent School District’s C. E. Barrick Elementary School realized certain funds were missing from the books.
Castorena-Narvaez was the secretary and part of her duties was to be responsible for the school’s finances, which included depositing cash from school fundraising events, but the numbers allegedly weren’t adding up.
Specifically, the principal told investigators that on Sept. 16, vendors reached out, saying they had not been paid for jobs. The principal further discovered that, in addition to the payments not being submitted to those vendors, cash collected from multiple school fundraisers this year had not been deposited in the school’s account, according to documents.
The principal then went directly to Castorena-Narvaez with the intent of getting to the bottom of it, but when she attempted to question her, the secretary said she had a family emergency she needed to take care of and rushed out.
The principal said she attempted to discuss the matter again with Castorena-Narvaez on Oct. 6, but when she approached her, the secretary said she suddenly fell ill and needed to go the emergency room.
The day Castorena-Narvaez returned to work from her medical emergency - Oct. 10 - is the day the fire happened.
According to investigators, early that morning, Castorena-Narvaez and seven other employees arrived at the building and reported to their work areas. Investigators checked the key access and clock-in logs to match everyone’s times.
All were interviewed, and each were accounted for at their normal locations, performing their normal duties, documents note.
One of the employees who conducted checks of the building said that when he passed by the office between 6 a.m. - 6:15 a.m., he did not see anything alarming.
He said he was alerted by Castorena-Narvaez of a fire in the front office a short time later. After extinguishing the flames, he reported that he thought the fire was “weird” and “looked like a campfire piled up.”
The investigation revealed that Castorena-Narvaez was the only one alone in the office at that particular time. She claimed she was sitting at her desk when she noticed the smoke in the front office, documents state.
The timeline appeared to show that she was the only likely person who could have started it. An investigator said, if there was a fire in the front office before Castorena-Narvaez entered, it would have caused significantly more damage than what was found.
The principal believed that the missing cash and the fire were connected to the suspect. Investigators agreed.
Due to their professional experience, investigators determined that the suspect “used an open flame to ignite materials at hand in the conference room to avoid a meeting where she was to explain what happened to the monies she was responsible for depositing.”
Castorena-Narvaez is not in custody at this time, but a warrant has been issued for her arrest.