KTSM: “A 40-year-old man arrested for allegedly setting a West Side home on fire is charged with capital murder after his brother was killed in the incident. The El Paso Police Department says Philip Daniel Mills set fire to a residence on Fandango Place on Thursday at 11:30 p.m. He was arrested after police suspected him of causing the blaze. An affidavit written by an EPPD detective says Mills allegedly admitted to setting the house on fire. And, in a recorded statement, claimed to have used gasoline from a weed eater to fuel the fire. Mills poured the gasoline on a sofa in the living room and used a lit cloth to start the fire, according to the document. ‘Once the sofa caught on fire, he walked outside the house and waited to see if his mother or brother would go outside but they didn’t, The defendant advised that he waited outside the residence with large rocks in his hands in the event that both his brother and mother had made it out the burning residence.'”
“A neighbor told KTSM he noticed Mills acting strange earlier in the day and said he was always ‘troublesome.’ ‘He was bad news, all he would do was sit out there and drink and smoke and I noticed he was back to his old routine,’ Roger Torres, a neighbor, said. Torres said Mills was always coming and going from out of town. He said he noticed the house in flames around 11 p.m. The affidavit claims Mills caused the fire because he was upset with his brother and mother because they did not follow the Bible. The document states Mills intentionally broke a television in the living room and threatened to burn the house down. ‘He intentionally broke the television located in the living room because he needed to ‘purge the home from ‘evil,’ Mills allegedly told police.”