MACHIAS – A Superior Court jury Wednesday found a local man not guilty of arson in connection with two fires last year at the assisted-living center where he was living.

No one was injured in the fires at Marshall Manor. They were quickly extinguished and were confined to two bathrooms in the wooden building.

Richard Wakefield, 66, of Cooper Street was charged with arson in connection with the fires last year.

He had been in the Washington County Jail since his arrest in August.

After the verdict Wednesday, he smiled broadly and thanked the jurors as they left the Washington County Courthouse. The trial began Tuesday before Justice Ellen Gorman.

Wakefield had been at Marshall Manor for about eight months when the fires occurred.

Around noon Aug. 3, 2002, a resident reported the smell of smoke. A staff member found a wastebasket in one of the third-floor bathrooms that contained smoldering paper. The staff member removed the wastebasket.

About an hour later, the building alarm went off and 38 people were evacuated from the building. A second wastebasket was found burning in another third-story bathroom.

After everyone was safely out of the building, members of the staff realized that Wakefield was not among them. He was on the third floor where the fire had started and, according to the prosecutor, tried to block a staff member from getting to the fire.

Wakefield’s attorney, Jeffrey Toothaker of Ellsworth, spent much of Wednesday morning poking holes in the confession the state had obtained from Wakefield shortly after the fires. A tape of the confession was played for jurors.

Edward Archer, an investigator for the state Fire Marshal’s Office, conducted the investigation. The defense attorney reminded Archer that his client had a long history of mental illness that included schizophrenia, psychosis and confusion.

Toothaker suggested Wakefield was easily swayed by authority figures and argued Wakefield eventually confessed for this reason. Toothaker said that whenever the investigator asked Wakefield a direct question about the fire, Wakefield would deny his involvement, but when he asked him a “leading” question, Wakefield wanted to cooperate and would tell the investigator what he wanted to hear.

Archer denied he had led Wakefield during questioning. He said Wakefield followed the classic pattern of first denying involvement, then later saying he was involved, but claiming it was an accident. Eventually Wakefield confessed to setting the fires, Archer said.

Toothaker also made much of two fires that were started on Aug. 4 and 5, while his client was in jail. Another person eventually was removed from Marshall Manor and sent to another facility. That person was not charged.

Assistant District Attorney Carletta Bassano told jurors that the Aug. 4 and 5 fires were the work of a copycat arsonist. He said investigators found evidence that showed there were differences in how the fires were started.

Bassano said Wakefield arrived at the facility in January 2002 and made it clear that he was unhappy and wanted to move. “He told them he hated the place and didn’t like the people there. He used words like ‘I hated them,'” she said.

But Toothaker, in his closing argument, told the jurors they were dealing with a mentally ill person, “a boy in a 66-year-old body,” he said.

It took the jurors less than an hour to find Wakefield not guilty.