The Binge Crimes: Finding Mom's Killer
The Arsonist Next Door | 6: Behind the Facade
Thu, 05 Jun 2025
The identity of the culprit raises more questions. Was this crusade to protect the desert real? Or just a smoke screen for something far more sinister? A shocking twist reveals how this local story ended up having global consequences. Binge all episodes of The Arsonist Next Door, ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access. From serial killer nurses to psychic scammers – The Binge is your home for true crime stories that pull you in and never let go. The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. A Sony Music Entertainment and Novel production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is the arsonist Mark Sands?
I refined the technique and got to the point where it took very little accelerant. Water bottle. With gasoline? Gaslighting. And you come up with now shall not desecrate. Now's not the time. I hear footsteps.
He never suspected that I was anything other than a close confidant of him and probably the only friend that he really had in the world at that time.
Mark's best friend, Warren Jeroms, turned against him to secretly record the confession. But strangely, it's Warren, not Mark, who is now overcome by guilt.
Chapter 2: What confession did Mark Sands make?
It just hit me that I had really betrayed him.
After the hike, Warren skips town for a while. A little over a week after the Grand Canyon operation, the cops hurtle back into Mark's neighborhood, Heritage Heights. A dozen armed officers surround his house. Helicopters are hovering overhead. Vicki, Mark's friend from Bible study, gets a phone call. Mark's about to be arrested.
Chapter 3: What led to Mark's arrest?
I only had like a 10-minute warning.
She heads over to try and pick up Mark's daughter before the cops show up.
I didn't make it fast enough. I got there right after they had literally broken down the door.
We were a little fearful that he'd be like a trapped criminal at that point. We weren't sure what he would do when he knew we were coming for him.
Guns drawn, they kick in the door and call for Mark to back out of the house with his hands where they can see them.
I remember him coming backwards to us.
FBI Special Agent Terry Kearns steps forward. The arson investigation is Terry's first time leading a major case.
Rob said, you cuff him.
This moment belongs to her.
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Chapter 4: What was the impact of Mark's crimes on the community?
Mark is hauled off to jail. His name is already known to the media from when he was arrested for vandalizing the sign. But now, the press are ferocious, coming after Mark's whole family.
They were really being hounded.
Initially, Mark claims that he's innocent. He's gonna fight the charges and take this to trial. But with the secretly recorded confession tape, plus the DNA evidence linking him to CSP's letters, the evidence against him is overwhelming. In the fall of 2001, Mark Sands pleads guilty to an eight-count indictment. He's sentenced to 18 years in federal prison.
Chapter 5: How did Mark Sands justify his actions?
Do you feel like that was a fair sentence for what he did?
I did. Yeah? Yeah, I felt it was fair.
While Mark's crimes were serious, I was surprised when I saw the length of his sentence. 18 years for crimes in which no one was injured or killed. Murderers frequently get less time than that. There's one way of looking at this case where the punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime. But on the other hand, it was pure luck that no one died.
The firefighters risked their lives again and again to put out these fires. And there were other costs too. Families were forced to watch as their dreams and sometimes life savings burned to the ground. Most of the folks whose houses burned down eventually rebuilt and moved on with their lives.
But there's one thing that I think probably couldn't be rebuilt so easily, the trust between Mark Sands and his friends and family. This is the part that I just can't get over, the betrayal of those closest to Mark. He put his friends and neighbors in danger over and over again and lied to their faces while doing it for more than a year.
And now Mark's family were facing the prospect of nearly two decades alone. They had no idea what he'd been up to in the preserve. The craziest part of all of this is that it was supposedly done in the name of protecting the mountain preserve, but Mark's fires didn't stop any houses from being built. If anything, they put the desert landscape more at risk of catching fire.
And then there's the wider impact on Phoenix. The arsons were estimated to cost the city and its residents over $5 million. But when I take a look at the indictment, I'm struck by how little it has to say about any of this. Mark pled guilty to one count of use of fire to commit a felony and seven counts of extortion affecting interstate commerce.
How does setting houses on fire affect interstate commerce?
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Chapter 6: What did Mark's family think of him?
Essentially, commodities were purchased, transported across state lines to build a home, and he disrupted that process.
It sounds like kind of a stretch.
It is getting creative with the statute for sure.
The decision about what charges make it into an indictment happens well above Lieutenant Rob Handy's pay grade. That's the purview of the attorney general in Phoenix and the top bosses on both sides of the task force. Rob tells me it's because they were looking for the longest possible sentence to protect the community. And for this, they needed to charge Mark in federal court.
They considered Mark to be a dangerous criminal and wanted him put away for a long time. But I can't help but wonder whether there was a more political reason for the federal charges, too. that the FBI needed to justify the money and resources they spent working on a local investigation that turned out to have very little to do with domestic terrorism, the original reason they got involved.
So if this would have turned out to be an ecoterrorist group, then the FBI has jurisdiction, and there's a lot of federal statutes that apply to that.
But if it's not an ecoterrorist, you've got to get creative with how the jurisdiction works.
Correct.
After all that panic in the media about CSP and radical eco-terrorism, after all those terrifying Bible-infused warning notes, Mark Sands was never charged or sentenced as a terrorist. Mark did create a wave of fear and anxiety in his community, but to be considered a terrorist, there has to be some kind of political or social objective driving the violence.
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Chapter 7: What were the motivations behind Mark's actions?
In the final chapter of my investigation, I'm setting out to find the truth behind what really drove Mark Sands into an epic crime spree, deceiving an entire city. And that's not all, because I've learned that there's yet another alleged crime that Mark Sands was never charged with, a crime that has nothing to do with arson.
I just think of him as an ugly, despicable human being.
From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, I'm Sam Anderson. This is The Arsonist Next Door.
Episode 6, Behind the Facade.
I'm searching for the real Mark Sands. I need to know what actually drove him to set those fires all those years ago. What tipped this seemingly normal man over the edge into doing something so extreme? After he was convicted, Mark served a little over 15 years in federal prison. He seems to have behaved well, even becoming a chaplain, which tracks with the religious tone of those CSP letters.
He got out in 2016.
As a chaplain, my primary ministry is with the homeless, mostly in North Phoenix.
That's Mark in 2019. He's giving a sermon. Once he got out of prison, he kept a pretty low profile, except for one big interview series with the Arizona Republic in 2019 that included a video piece.
Let's go. Americans are great at having facades, and often it's a lie.
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Chapter 8: What is the aftermath of Mark Sands' life after prison?
He says, Wait, what?
There's got to be some type of announcement, like some type of memorial?
You would think so, especially for a deeply Christian man.
This came as a complete shock to me. Not only is there no record at all online or in any newspaper, but no one I'd spoken to knew that Mark had died. But the pastor sends us the booklet from Mark's funeral. It's official. Mark Sands died in August 2023. Journalistically speaking, the news is a huge disappointment. But then something happens. the world of Mark Sand's life after prison opens up.
I get in touch with some folks who were close to Mark in the final years of his life, and they're willing to talk. I want to ask them what they think really drove the man they knew. They said, if I wanted to understand Mark, I should visit the homeless shelter where he volunteered as a chaplain.
All right, well, welcome, everybody. Good morning. God bless you. I'm not that good, but I love Jesus, so... We all sound perfect to him, so... I'm inside a small chapel at Central Arizona Shelter Services.
It's the biggest homeless shelter in Phoenix. Tell me, what kind of work would Mark do in a place like this? He would do one of the Bible studies. It's kind of whatever. is on the heart of the chaplain to talk about. I want to ask these people about Mark's crimes, but it turns out that a lot of the folks who remember Mark from this place don't know about his past at all.
So why Mark Sands?
Well, Mark Sands had a notorious history.
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