The Westchester County grand jury returned today an indictment charging murder and arson against Thomas Ruppert, the 17-year-old youth arrested in the fire in the Yonkers Jewish Center last December 20 which killed three adults and nine children.
The youth, a high school dropout, was a Neighborhood Youth Corps worker at the center when the blaze occurred. He was given a psychiatric examination and released from a hospital last February and immediately arrested on charges of setting the fire. The indictment contained 24 courts of murder, including one count for each of the victims and 12 counts of accessory to the deaths.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
