COLUMBIA, S.C. — (WLTX) -- There are more charges filled in connection to the Greene Street fire arson investigation. The 21-year-old suspect is now also charged with 10 counts of assault and battery first degree.
Frank John Wilberding had his bond hearing Thursday morning. Three out of ten victims who were in the house the morning it was set on fire came to make a statement to the judge.
"I was the one who discovered the fire," Romey Poore Jr said. "It was set six to ten feet from my head on the porch right outside my window."
Poore just graduated from the University of South Carolina this May and now doesn't have a home/
"I saw flames come underneath the doorway and then just immediately ran around yelling fire to everybody," Poore said.
Wilberding was arrested and charged for setting fire to two homes on Greene Street. One fire spread to the neighbors home and a fire at a third home extinguished itself out. Police said surveillance video shows Wilberding starting one of those fires on a back porch.
"We lost everything in that fire, priceless family heirlooms, stuff that was given to me from my grandfather that passed away last year and on top of that if we would of been in that house three minutes later this would be a different story," victim Matthew Talbot said.
Wilberding is charged with 10 counts of assault and battery first degree, three counts of arson second degree and possession of a controlled substance, Xanax. The judge denied Wilberding's bond on the three arson charges, set a $100,000 bond on the assault and battery charges and set a $2,000 bond on the drug charge.
An investigator said Wilberding gave them a statement saying he was having issues with someone for a couple of weeks and was sent a message that, that person was at or nearby the Greene Street location. Poore said he doesn't know Wilberding, but said he forgives him.
"I've done some stuff that have hurt people in the past, I think everybody has," Poore said. "He didn't mean to hurt me, he didn't mean to hurt anybody in that house and he didn't truly hurt anybody who was in that house. We lost stuff and stuff is more replaceable than any life that was in that building and life that was in the building next store."
"I'm sorry for Mr. Wilberding, I assume he is going to miss a lot of funerals and weddings and babies being born and I just hope that everything is OK and he is able to make amends," Poore said. "I forgive him for what he did and I'm just glad it's not a different story."
The judge said if convicted Wilberding could face up to 175 years in prison.
Wilberding is a quadruplet. He has two siblings that attend University of South Carolina and his attorney said he came to Columbia from Hilton Head to be closer to his siblings.