Dastardly deeds close shop

WASILLA — Wasilla fire and police officials have launched an arson investigation of two suspicious December fires at the Earthly Treasures Thrift Shop on Lucille Street.

The thrift shop, which reportedly used its proceeds to help needy Valley residents and orphans in Third World countries, partially burned the night of Dec. 6 and again on Dec. 17.

Mat-Su Central Fire Department Chief James Steele said Friday the first fire was extinguished fairly quickly because he and his staff had just finished an officers’ meeting at Station 6-1 across from the thrift store at about 9:40 p.m. when one of his crew noticed smoke coming from the building.

“The fire started in one room and was contained to a couple of rooms,” Steele said, being guarded about providing too much information since the fire is under investigation. “The next one was in the evening also, but we’d just received another call off Goose Creek Road near Point MacKenzie Road and less than an hour later, a call came in for the Earthly Treasures fire.”

Steele said that fire destroyed an additional room. He would not provide any details about locations of the fires, possible causes, why they are listed as suspicious or whom officials consider suspects.

The owner of the thrift shop, Kathy Marshall, had placed an advertisement in Friday’s Frontiersman labeled “Beauty for Ashes,” thanking everyone who had made the store “such a huge success from here in Wasilla to the four corners of the Earth.”

The ad announced that her family would not be reopening the doors as a thrift shop, but rather “taking a step of faith as a non-profit organization facilitating mission trips around the world as ‘A Whirlwind to the Nations.’ ”

The ad also thanked everyone who supplied donations to the store over the last 10 years.

“You have poured yourselves out like a living sacrifice to bless this community and those abroad,” it says. “It has been like a ripple effect starting here in Wasilla and extending out to the nations, bringing a lasting impact.”

At the bottom of the ad, Marshall says she will provide more information about the new non-profit organization over the next few months through the store’s website, earthlytreasuresthriftstore.com.

Marshall’s husband, Tom, said Friday his wife was on her way to Burundi, Africa, to work in an orphanage there. She’d stopped in Tucson, Ariz., over the weekend to visit her daughter on the way, he said.

“It’s a loss to the community,” Tom Marshall said of the closing of the thrift shop. “She had helped a lot of people. But the store’s pretty much done. After the first fire, she thought she might be able to salvage it, but when the second one happened, she just said ‘enough’s enough.’”

He said his wife gave the money from the store to orphanages and widows in Guatemala, Thailand and India, among other places. He said they have no idea who could have set the fires or why.

“It was just a thrift store,” the slope worker said. “How mad could you get at a thrift store?”

About $3,400 in property taxes for 2010 is currently owed on the property, according to Mat-Su Borough records. The building at 340 N. Lucille St. was assessed at $213,600 last year.

Kathy Marshall could not be reached for comment on her cell phone Sunday before she left for Burundi Monday.

The Frontiersman ad representative who handled the account said Kathy Marshall had told him some kids had torched the store twice.

Crews from the local company Flawless Construction were seen at the site Monday.

Wasilla Police Investigator Ruth Josten said Monday she wasn’t at liberty to discuss the case, but imagines it will be a while before any findings are made.

Neither Steele nor Josten would say whether the Marshall family is a suspect in the case.

“Arson investigations can be pretty lengthy and time-intensive,” Josten said Monday.

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.