Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email.
Daniel Luck on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, recounts escaping from a second-floor window during an August 2022 fire.
Daniel Luck, left, reviews video with defense attorney Nichole Watt during trial on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022.
Ellen Hammett testified on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, that she felt uncomfortable staying at the East Second Street home.
Eryn Hageman with the Waterloo Police Department testified Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, she collected a gas can near the scene of a fire at 309 E. Second St.
WATERLOO — Hours after a house fire killed his long-time friend, John Walter Spooner was fixated on a drain.
Spooner, 59, was convinced there was a man hiding in the floor drain in the holding cell at the Waterloo Police Department. Spooner thought the man in the drain was going to shoot and kill him.
“He was delusional,” said Officer Eryn Hageman, who had been tasked with photographing Spooner and collecting evidence following the fatal fire.
She put her foot over the drain to convince Spooner he was safe.
Jurors heard about the floor drain and Spooner’s other odd behavior around the time of the August fire Monday as testimony resumed in his arson trial.
The testimony also came shortly after a judge blocked the defense’s efforts to claim insanity, although the court did leave the door open for a possible intoxication defense.
Authorities allege Spooner set fire to Tony Grider’s home at 309 E. Second St. shortly before 7 a.m. Aug. 19. Grider was trapped in his second-floor bedroom and later pronounced dead at the hospital.
John Walter Spooner listens to testimony during trial on Monday.
Grider’s friends said he used his East Third Street home to help out people who were down on their luck, giving them a place to stay while they got back on their feet.
“People were always coming in and out, said Daniel Luck, who stayed in an upstairs bedroom. “Tony was the kind of person that would help people.”
For a while the house had been known as Tony’s Recovery House, and his limited liability corporation was listed with the state. But Luck said that despite its name and good intentions, he was usually the only person at the house who was regularly clean and sober.
Luck, who had been living there for years and has been sober for more than two decades, said he usually distanced himself from others at the house. He didn’t congregate with them in the living room and usually just went to his room to sleep after a day of work. His bedroom door had a lock, and he kept a baseball bat nearby.
Spooner was one of the people who would sometimes stay with Grider, Luck said. He said occasionally Spooner and Grider would get in arguments about money or food, and Spooner would be kicked out.
“He would come and stay, and Tony would tell him to leave,” Luck said. But they would usually regenerate their friendship, and Grider would let him back in.
Spooner had stayed at the house a few days earlier and was back at the house the day before the fire.
That was the day Luck’s pickup truck began leaking water, and he and Grider pulled it up onto the sidewalk where the higher ground would allow someone to squeeze underneath to work on it.
Spooner hung around to help, Luck said. At one point while they were working on the truck, Spooner asked Luck if he felt safe living in the house.
A passerby notified authorities of a house on fire at 309 E. Second St. shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. Firefighters pulled one person from the home.
Luck said the question was “off the chain” and he questioned Spooner why he would ask such a thing. Spooner said something about bad air and reacted as if he saw something flying by, Luck said.
Luck said Grider was still working on the truck when he went upstairs to bed.
Another person who lived at the house, Ellen Hammett, a former Florida resident who had been renting a room for a few months, said Grider was the next to go to bed, and she then headed to her first-floor bedroom, locking the door and leaving Spooner in the living room.
Hammett said she wasn’t able to sleep. Spooner was pacing back and forth, talking, apparently to himself. He was “freaking out” and said something about people arguing on the porch, but she didn’t hear anyone on the porch or outside.
Sometime after midnight, she texted Grider, telling him she didn’t feel comfortable in the house.
“This boy down here tripping,” she texted.
Grider didn’t respond. She also texted other friends to see if they could come pick her up. No one did, and she fell asleep.
By daybreak, Spooner was pacing back and forth outside on the sidewalk across the street from the house.
A neighbor, Tracy Glawe, noticed him acting oddly when she walked to her truck to take a friend home. Instead of leaving, the two sat in her vehicle for about 10 minutes watching Spooner.
“He wasn’t in his right mind,” said Glawe, who recognized Spooner from hanging out with Grider the day before.
She shot a few quick videos of his antics with her cellphone.
Glawe said she could hear Spooner muttering “blow it up” several times while he was flicking a large lighter.
“Get out while you can. I got out,” he said. “They will open the door and come out.”
He also said “I did what I had to do” and then something about “the navy is going to bomb the parking lot.”
This was at about 6:26 a.m., before the fire started. Glawe said she figured Spooner was on drugs and drove off.
Back inside the house, Hammett woke early and was in her room playing with her kitten when she heard glass breaking. When she went to investigate, she saw flames and frantically searched for an exit before climbing out her bedroom window.
She watched as passersby helped Luck from his second-floor window, and she noticed Spooner as they regrouped by the sidewalk.
Hammett said she asked Spooner why he didn’t warn them the house was on fire. Spooner responded by asking her if she saw a serpent, Hammett said.
“I was kind of dumbfounded,” Hammett said.
Testimony is scheduled to continue Tuesday in Black Hawk County District Court.
A passerby notified authorities of a house on fire at 309 E. Second St. shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday. Firefighters pulled one person from the home.
A passerby notified authorities of a house on fire at 309 E. Second St. shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday. Firefighters pulled one person from the home.
A passerby notified authorities of a house on fire at 309 E. Second St. shortly before 7 a.m. on Aug. 19. Firefighters pulled one person from the home.
Authorities are investigating a fire at 309 E. Second St., Waterloo, that sent one person to the hospital on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022.
Authorities are investigating a fire at 309 E. Second St., Waterloo, that sent one person to the hospital on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022.
Authorities are investigating a fire at 309 E. Second St., Waterloo, that sent one person to the hospital on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022.
Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email.
I started with The Courier in 1999 and cover criminal justice and public safety.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
WATERLOO — A Sumner man has pleaded not guilty to charges he set a fire that killed a Waterloo man in August.
A Sumner man has been arrested in connection with a fatal fire in Waterloo Friday morning.
Residents called 911 shortly before 10:20 p.m. Sunday after hearing gunshots in the 1000 block of West Fifth Street, where police found the person dead on the sidewalk.
WATERLOO — Good Samaritans described how they helped save one man who was trapped inside a burning Waterloo home in August.
After leaving the porch, he remained and watched the house until smoke and flames were visible
Daniel Luck on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, recounts escaping from a second-floor window during an August 2022 fire.
Daniel Luck, left, reviews video with defense attorney Nichole Watt during trial on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022.
John Walter Spooner listens to testimony during trial on Monday.
Ellen Hammett testified on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, that she felt uncomfortable staying at the East Second Street home.
Eryn Hageman with the Waterloo Police Department testified Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, she collected a gas can near the scene of a fire at 309 E. Second St.
Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.