Feb. 10 (UPI) -- The man accused of setting fire to three historically black churches in Louisiana last year -- who's the son of a deputy sheriff -- changed his plea to guilty on Monday.
Holden Matthews entered the new plea at U.S. District Court in Lafayette, La. He'd faced three counts of intentional damage to a religious facility and three counts of using fire to commit a felony. He also faces state charges that include committing a hate crime.
Matthews, 22, pleaded guilty to all three counts of causing intentional damage and one of the other three counts.
Prosecutors said Matthews committed the crimes in St. Landry Parish March and April of last year. Many compared the fires to images of violence that occurred during the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the U.S. southeast.
In court, authorities had presented video evidence and cellphone data they said placed Matthews at the locations of all three fires.
Investigators argued Matthews was a fan of "black metal," a sub-genre of heavy metal music connected to church fires in Norway in the 1990s. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called the fires a form of "domestic terrorism."
