On a warm night in July 2001, Stephen Evola and his sister Jaclyn did what any young twenty-somethings would do when their parents left town — they had a party. The siblings invited a large group of friends to their home in Grosse Point, Mich., an affluent suburb of Detroit.

At around 4 a.m., the party started dying down and Stephen Fennell, 23, one of the few guests remaining, began to joke around about throwing a firework into a nearby horse barn. According to witnesses, he walked across the street between five to 10 minutes later and did just that, allegedly throwing a mortar toward the 91-year-old Grosse Pointe Hunt Club barn.

By the time daylight broke, the barn was burned to the ground and 19 horses were dead.

Nineteen horses were killed in the barn fire.

Stephen Fennell was tried for one count of arson and 19 counts of willfully and maliciously killing and/or torturing an animal. If convicted of arson, he faced up to 10 years behind bars.

Practical Joke Gone Bad

On the night of the fire, The Hunt Club's night watchman, Ray Neal, heard a "Voop" sound and though he didn't see anything, prosecutors claim it was the firework that Fennell threw on the barn's roof. A short time later, a raging fire broke out. Neal risked his life to save five horses, but for the rest it was too late.

Most were incinerated in the fire, but one, Bart, had to be put down the next day after he tried to jump through one of the barn's small windows and sustained severe chest trauma.

When Fennell and his friends saw the flames, they ran away and assembled in Evola's kitchen. One of the hosts, Jaclyn Evola, claims she wanted to call 911, but Fennell told her not to. They decided to lie to police and say they were all sleeping at the time of the fire. No one called 911.

Six of the horses that died in the blaze belonged to the riding school, but the rest belonged to individual owners who were shocked and upset when they heard the sad news. Many were dedicated horse enthusiasts and had planned to take their prized horses to the Hunt Club's biggest riding competition of the year, The Michigan Jumper Association Class B competition.

"We hope he is charged to the fullest extent of the law," Lisa Acho, manager of the Michigan Humane Society of Rochester Hills told the Detroit News. "Usually on the Fourth of July we see dogs running off scared from fireworks … not something this malicious."

The Hunt Club has sued Stephen Fennell, Joseph Evola and his parents for $1.25 million.

No Accident

Although Fennell may not have intended to set the fire, he did know the risks involved in throwing a firework into a barn full of horses and disregarded those risks, argued prosecutor Ken Simon. The state asserted that common sense should have told Fennell that throwing a firecracker in an old, wooden barn filled with flammables like hay was likely to cause a blaze. Fennell was also trying to scare the horses by setting off the fireworks which was, according to the prosecutor, mental torture.

The prosecution maintained the simple act of "scaring" the horses constitutes "mental" harm, and therefore should be considered torture.

Prosecutors called eyewitnesses from the party who testified seeing Fennell throw the firework at the barn.

As for prosecution experts, Dr. Patricia Loomis, a veterinarian specializing in equine medicine who was called to the scene of the fire, said loud noises, like the sound of a firework, would scare horses. Because a horse's natural instinct is to flee, and because all the horses in the barn were confined to stalls, a loud noise would panic them.

Electrical and a mechanical engineers also were on hand to testify the fire was not caused by either mechanical or electrical malfunctions.

Not His Fault

The defense set out to convince the jury that the fire was accidental and unintentional. Nobody, not Fennell or his friends, the Hunt Club, the police or the neighbors thought there was anything dangerous about the barn, they argued. In addition, Fennell never said he wanted to kill or harm the horses or set the barn on fire.

They also sought to poke holes in eyewitness testimony and contended there was no certainty that the firework caused the blaze.

As far as "mentally torturing" the horses with the fireworks, the defense maintained fireworks didn't disturb them.

The Verdict