A West Philly man is on trial this week for setting a fire that killed his ex’s disabled sister
Delaware County prosecutors urged jurors to convict Aaron Clark of first-degree murder for killing his ex-girlfriend's wheelchair-bound sister in a fire he set at her home in December 2022.
When Aaron Clark’s soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend ignored his 200 calls in December 2022, he sent her a simple text message: “Pick up before I do something crazy.”
Clark, unable to handle the impending end to what Delaware County prosecutors described Tuesday as a toxic, abusive relationship, later made good on that threat, they said.
The West Philadelphia resident set fire to Amira Rogers’ home in Darby Township, killing Olivia Drasher, her wheelchair-bound sister, and forever tearing her family apart, Assistant District Attorney Danielle Gallaher said at the beginning of Clark’s trial for murder and related crimes.
“The breakup was the match that lit this fire, and the defendant was going to burn her and everything she cared about down to the ground,” Gallaher told jurors in her opening statement.
Just after midnight on Dec. 4, 2022, Clark, 33, sprayed accelerant on the front porch of Rogers’ home on Sharon Avenue, directly underneath her sister’s bedroom, the prosecutor said. Witnesses told 911 dispatchers that the fire spread quickly, and soon the entire house was engulfed.
Rogers’ mother, other sister, and Drasher’s full-time nurse were able to escape. But Drasher died in the blaze.
Gallaher promised the jury that “physical evidence, digital evidence and the defendant’s actions” will prove Clark was the only one who had the motivation and will to target Rogers and her family.
A man wearing distinctive clothing similar to what Clark was seen wearing that day was recorded on surveillance footage near the scene of the fire, Gallaher said. And cellphone data shows he was in the area of the blaze when it was set.
But Clark’s attorney, Michael Dugan, challenged Gallaher’s theory of the case, saying investigators had “tunnel vision” and focused in on Clark at the insistence of Rogers and her family.
Authorities failed, Dugan said, to find any witnesses who said he set the fire, and instead relied on “assumption and supposition.”
“At the end of the day, this is a tragic case,” the defense lawyer said. “But also at the end of the day, you have to understand that emotion doesn’t prove a case, evidence does.”
At the start of testimony, prosecutors chronicled the tumultuous 10 months during which Rogers and Clark dated. They met as co-workers at the United States Postal Service’s facility in Southwest Philadelphia.
But their relationship turned sour toward the end of 2022.
Hours before setting the deadly blaze, prosecutors said, Clark attacked Rogers when she confronted him over his infidelity and ended their relationship. He choked her so hard, she testified Tuesday, that she was afraid he was going to kill her.
“I begged him to stop,” Rogers said, her voice filled with emotion. “I felt terrified, because I didn’t know what he was doing.”
That attack came weeks after another, similar assault, she said, in which Clark struck her so hard that he bent the laptop computer she was carrying at the time.
Rogers later took steps to avoid Clark, changing her scheduled shift at work and reporting his continued harassment to their supervisors, she said Tuesday.
For hours on the day of the crime, Clark called her nonstop, his requests to speak with her turning to demands and, eventually, threats, according to text messages displayed in court.
Clark made an Instagram account through which he shared nude photos of Rogers, and shared the account with her family and friends.
Rogers continued to ignore Clark. Then he sent her a cryptic message not long before the fire was set: “Hope you don’t miss the show.”
The trial is expected to last through Friday before Delaware County Court Judge Deborah Krull.