Cops say Lakemoor house fire was suspicious

Police are investigating a suspicious home fire that ignited Saturday night on a property at the center of a bitter family battle.

The fire began about 7 p.m. and destroyed an unoccupied home in the Fritzsche Industrial Park at 410 Amanda Ave., Lakemoor police chief Wally Fraiser said.

The house - one of two residences in the industrial park - was being rented, but no one was home at the time of the blaze, Fraiser said. There were no injuries.

The cause of the fire had not been determined, Frasier said, but it is being treated as an arson.

"In a situation like this, we treat the fire as suspicious until a cause is determined," he said. "We aren't saying the fire is arson, just that we are investigating it as if it were an arson."

Firefighters from McHenry, Fox Lake, Wauconda, and other nearby towns were called in to assist in putting out the blaze. The house was totaled by the fire, Fraiser said, though a monetary amount of damages was not released.

The house and surrounding industrial park has been part of a legal war among Fritzsche family members since 2006.

The elderly Herbert Fritzsche built the houses and industrial park before granting his daughter, Christine Rock, power of attorney, court records indicate.

In the summer of 2006, court records filed by other family members state, Fritzsche revoked the power of attorney and steps were taken to remove Rock's control over the property.

However, according to a lawsuit filed by Rock's siblings, she then executed a lease of up to 20 years with her live-in boyfriend, Gregory L. LaPlante, granting him control over the industrial park.

The suit claims the lease is unlawful and Rock never had authority to execute it on her father's behalf.

The acrimony escalated in 2007 when Rock, 56, and LaPlante, 42 and a onetime candidate for the Lakemoor Village board, were charged with multiple felonies alleging they took advantage her father to seize control of the industrial park. Both have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to stand trial in July.

The incident remains tied up in litigation, Frasier said, so police are still trying to determine who owned the home at the time of Saturday's fire.

"All I can say is we are working with the fire department to determine a cause of the fire," he said. "It's suspicious in that we do not have a definite cause for the fire."

Staff writer Charles Keeshan contributed to this story.