BELTON (July 6, 2009)—Chris Benitez, 26, whom authorities identified as a Fort Hood soldier, was in the Bell County Jail Monday evening after he was arrested on the Fourth of July in Belton in the March 14, 2001 death of a firefighter in Phoenix, Ariz.

Bret Tarver, 40, died while battling a supermarket fire that authorities said was set deliberately in a mound of trash behind the store.

He got tangled up in debris in the back of the store, became disoriented and ran out of oxygen.

Phoenix Fire Department Capt. Willie Nelson said a tip from an informant placed Benitez at the scene of the fire

Nelson said he interviewed the soldier about a year ago in Texas and then returned to Phoenix where investigators questioned Benitez’s friends and acquaintances from the time of the fire.

Based on what they found, Nelson said, a grand jury returned an arson indictment naming Benitez, who was deployed to Iraq, but who was returned to post.

Nelson says the motive for the fire appears to have been a shoplifting arrest after a beer theft from the supermarket.