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Unfaithful wife torched family home
Monday, 29 September 2008
Supplied
RUINED DREAMS: The remains of Joseph Gray’s Dannevirke house; his wife burned down their house in a botched insurance fraud attempt.
A navy policeman who retired to became a small-town volunteer firefighter has been left single and broke after his wife burned down their house in a botched insurance fraud attempt.
Blinded by love, Mr Gray stuck by his wife till the final insult was revealed at her arson trial.
Racheal Losanna Gray, 34, also ripped off the Dannevirke fire brigade of which her husband, Joseph, had become the treasurer. He has now filed for divorce. Evidence emerged that she was having an affair – with one of his best mates, a fellow firefighter.
She was jailed on Friday for 2 1/2 years for arson and fraud.
"I must have been like an owl that had just been hit by headlights," he said. Instead they became the talk of the town.
The couple moved from Auckland to Dannevirke with their children in October 2004, seeking the quiet life. An emergency meeting of the brigade was called and Mr Gray confessed his wife's thieving.
Racheal Gray stole $3000 from the brigade to pay debts.
He resigned as treasurer and eventually quit the brigade.
"The guys were really supportive, but at the end of the day they had been ripped off and the community had been ripped off," he said. Racheal Gray was arrested for arson. Then on November 6, 2006, the house – bought with his superannuation payout – was set ablaze. No one expected it to be a wife.
Her husband said: "There's always a joke in every fire brigade that there's an arsonist.
"I guess deep down you don't want to believe your wife burned your house and could do that to you and your kids."
But she denied it and he stood by her, though doubts had crept in. They have moved back to Auckland and Mr Gray is once more a navy policeman."
They lost everything – home, insurance, financial security – and the children, 11 and 8, were teased at school.
At her sentencing in Palmerston North District Court, the prosecution said lie upon lie steamrolled, culminating in the arson.
In May, Racheal Gray was found guilty of arson and pleaded guilty to two fraud charges, after she used forged documents to apply for a $1500 bank overdraft.
Outside court, Mr Gray said he did not hate her, but hated what she had done.
Outside court, Mr Gray said he did not hate her, but hated what she had done. He was still unsure whether the arson was for the insurance, as a result of her affair ending, or to get sympathy from people to whom she owed money.
Of the 2 1/2-year sentence, he said: "For the kids' sake, yeah that's long enough away from them, but personally if they had thrown away the key it wouldn't have worried me."
He still had no clue what she spent the money on.
It was her first prison sentence, though she was convicted of five fraud charges in 2006 – including ripping off the fire brigade and conning locals out of cash for promised trips to Bathurst.
Mr Gray said her talents were wasted as she was creative on the computer. "She would be a very, very good fraud investigator. She's a wasted brain."
Dannevirke fire chief Mike Finucane said the brigade's money had been repaid and firefighters were happy the matter was over. "It was a sorry state of affairs."
