The owner of four chicken houses that were destroyed in a June 2 fire has been charged with four counts of arson in Pike County, Alabama.
The owner, Tu Thi Do, 62, was arrested on suspicion of intentionally setting the four structures on fire, but has since been released on a $40,000 bond.
The barns contained chickens that were being raised for and were owned by Wayne Farms, according to a WSFA report. Some of the birds apparently were able to escape, and the company was able to gather surviving chickens that were in the nearby woods after the fire occurred.
Investigators believe Do, a resident of Chicago, set the buildings on fire to collect on a $700,000 insurance policy.
Wayne Farms, according to the WATTAgNet Top Poultry Companies Database, processed 47.1 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis in 2018. The company, which is headquartered in Oakwood, Georgia, has nine processing plants, one further processing plant, 10 hatcheries and seven feed mills. It’s newest feed mill, located in Ozark, Alabama, began operations in early 2017 and has the capacity to produce 25,000 tons of poultry feed per week.
