Police investigate fire and break-in at Queens church rec center

WOODHAVEN (WABC) -- Bags of evidence hopefully will provide the clues police need to catch whoever is responsible for trying to set a Lutheran community center on fire in Woodhaven, Queens.

"I noticed that all the burners were on on the stove, and there was a can - a spray paint can or something like it on top of the stove," says building custodian Nathaniel Rodriguez.

Rodriguez made the disturbing discovery when he went to put out the garbage at the Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church across the street around 2:30 in the morning. He then noticed that all of the lights were on in the center and the back door was open.

"This place is a wreck - papers all over, desks turned over on their sides, burn marks on the floor from the front to the back, like they tried to set the floor on fire," adds Rodriguez.

A swarm of police officers and detectives quickly arrived and cordoned off the building, and began their investigation. At first, light investigators with the fire marshal's office also began to look into the suspicious nature of the attempted fire. Officials with the church, which owns the building says it had been used for years by a number of different community groups, but recently it was being cleaned out after the church merged with two others.

"What they are saying is that it looks like they tried to set it on fire, but the way they went about it is very weird," says Church Council President John Naudus.

The center, Naudus says, has not been a target of vandalism previously, and even neighbors are quite surprised at the crime.

"It's terrible, my God! And it's an empty building, right? It's not even occupied," says neighbor Carmella D'Agostino.

Shirley Perkins saw all the police from her apartment.

"I am shocked, because we never had this in our neighborhood," Perkins said.

And had it not been for Nathaniel Rodriguez noticing that something was not right, there could have been much of a different outcome.

"Someone poured something on the floor and lit it. Lucky it went out," Rodriguez said, "and they trashed the place, too."