Caution tape surrounds Wendy’s on the 31-W Bypass on Feb. 21 after the Bowling Green Fire Department put out a fire at the fast food restaurant.

A Bowling Green man suspected of intentionally setting a fire that heavily damaged the Wendy’s on the U.S. 31-W Bypass has been indicted on several criminal counts.

Michael A. Sheehan, 40, was indicted on charges of second-degree arson, third-degree burglary, theft by unlawful taking of property valued at $1,000 or more but less than $10,000, first-degree criminal mischief, tampering with physical evidence and intimidating a participant in the legal process.

Sheehan is accused of involvement in the Feb. 21 fire at the the restaurant, which police say was set in an effort to cover up the theft of money from a safe at the store.

Detective Jordan Tyree of the Bowling Green Police Department testified during a preliminary hearing last month in Warren District Court that Sheehan was employed as a manager at Wendy’s.

Police investigating the fire learned that money was missing from the safe, though there was no sign the safe had been forced open. 

A DVR box containing the store’s surveillance footage had also been cut and removed.

Tyree said in court that video surveillance footage from a neighboring business shows a man wearing black clothing and with most of his face covered entering the store in the early morning hours of Feb. 21 and cutting off the power.

The man is then seen running from the business before returning to the Wendy’s about 50 minutes later, leaving with the DVR box a short time afterward.

“Shortly after (the suspect) flees the scene, the business was observed going up in smoke and the suspect continued fleeing,” Tyree said during the preliminary hearing.

The Bowling Green Fire Department found some accelerant at the scene of the fire.

Sheehan denied any role in the burglary, theft or fire when questioned by police.

A Wendy’s district manager told police that a burglary had occurred at the Bypass location eight months before the fire, and four employees were provided with new keys after the locks were changed on the safe.

“She advised that Sheehan had expressed concern that one of the district managers was going to come in and check to see who was stealing from the store,” Tyree said in court last month.

City police also interviewed Sheehan’s girlfriend, who said that she saw him get dressed in black clothing in the early morning hours of Feb. 21 and heard him express concern that a district manager would review camera footage from the store to find out who was taking money, and that he planned to take the DVR box and destroy it, according to prior testimony.

Sheehan’s girlfriend also told police that he would kill her if he spoke with law enforcement, court records show.

Sheehan is due to appear Monday before Warren Circuit Judge John Grise for arraignment.

Since his arrest on March 13, Sheehan picked up a new charge of tampering with a witness.

He was cited April 17 on the charge based on an allegation that he called his girlfriend from Warren County Regional Jail and asked her if he was going to change her statement to police, an arrest citation shows.

Sheehan was ordered last month by Warren District Judge John Brown to have no contact with his girlfriend, but an arrest citation said he has “made a large number of calls” to her, “even going so far as to trying to get her to marry him, in an apparent attempt to have her not have to testify against him,” his arrest citation says.

“Sheehan has also called several other individuals in an attempt to have them draft and deliver an affidavit for (his girlfriend) to sign saying that she made up the statement that she provided to the police,” Tyree wrote in the arrest citation.

That charge has been referred to a grand jury, and Sheehan remains jailed.