Former firefighter says blazes were not his
Alpine
The former firefighter and emergency medical technician charged with lighting a series of up to 10 wildfires throughout Alpine over the course of months, and possibly years, said he is living with a shadow over him while the court system crawls along at a snail’s pace.
“The fact is I didn’t do it,” David Matthew Neet said Monday by telephone. “There was somebody else. [Investigators] were looking at somebody else as well. The same person I was thinking of.” Neet, who now is living in El Paso, did not say who he suspects committed the arson.
While no one was injured in any of the wildfires—some of which could have been set up to two years before Neet’s arrest—at least one fire came up directly behind a residence.
Sheriff’s deputies arrested Neet on July 5, 2024, and he was indicted on September 17, 2024. Although originally charged with 20 counts of second-degree felony arson, the indictment was for only one count. Neet eventually pled not guilty in a February 14, 2024, hearing and was released on a personal recognizance bond, which didn’t require paying anything toward his original $300,000 bond.
Neet said that for the months he was imprisoned, he never saw a judge, which he said should have happened shortly after the indictment. “I sat in jail for seven and a half months without any idea what’s going on,” he said. “Once indicted, I should be able to go see a judge. They say speedy trial, speedy everything. That wasn’t [happening].”
Neet said he feels just as isolated from the case now, not knowing where it stands, and that he hasn’t heard from his attorneys at Far West Texas Regional Public Defender since September. He said at one point he was offered a plea deal, but then prosecutors pulled the deal, which he declined to comment further on.
A probable cause arrest affidavit for Neet’s arrest outlines much of the prosecutor’s case against him—alleging that Neet used incendiary devices to light brushfires, then rushed to the fire station to grab his gear and join crews to fight the blazes. A deputy spotted a white pickup truck near a fire in the Sunny Glen Estates subdivision, then used security camera footage to get a license plate on the truck, which was traced to Neet. By reviewing security tapes, the deputy pieced together when and where the truck was traveling when several fires broke out. The footage showed Neet’s pickup heading out of town, only to return just as fires were being reported on several occasions. Investigators also obtained records from a fireworks stand just east of town that revealed a credit card purchase by Neet on June 29 for a “Ground Bloom Flower,” a type of firework found at one of the brushfires. Security camera footage also placed him at the firework stand. A court record for a search of Neet’s car revealed items found, including fireworks, matches, a GoPro camera, “firestarters,” tape and a “backpack with electronics.”
Neet said the evidence amounts to nothing damning. For instance, he said the videos of him driving in and out of town are exactly that, because he likes to drive to calm himself down from the anxiety and PTSD he suffers from. “So hell, I would drive to Fort Stockton, to Midland-Odessa, just to get away from the anxiety,” he said. “And they’re saying, ‘Well you had fireworks.’ Well, it’s the 4th of July.”
Neet served in the military before becoming a paramedic. In Alpine, He worked for the 1st Response EMS team, which provides nonemergency medical transport, and as a volunteer firefighter for several years.
“I honestly didn’t do it,” Neet said. “Like everybody has said, why would I waste my career, waste everything for that? And I’ve got everybody I’ve talked to. People I used to work with were like, ‘There’s no way in hell you did it.’ My commanding officer in the military said, ‘There’s no way in hell. Hell, you were with me, you were with us at the military when some of this went down.’”
The 83rd District attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the slow process heading toward a possible trial; it is not uncommon in the Big Bend for criminal cases to drag on two years or more.
Neet said he is waiting in a world that doesn’t allow him to get a good job in his field, and he’s left scrambling for odd jobs. “I can’t even use my paramedic license. My military life is gone. My entire life is gone until they figure this out.”