An Arlington Heights woman faces an arson charge stemming from a fire early Tuesday that caused significant damage to Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, police announced Wednesday.
Virginia Roque-Fermin, 41, of the 4200 block of Jennifer Lane, is scheduled to appear in Cook County bond court later today on the felony charge, police said.
According to police, officers responding to a report of a fire at 2:31 a.m. Tuesday saw Roque-Fermin quickly walking away from the ablaze shrine. The officers also observed soot on the front of her clothes and detained her for further investigation, police said.
Virginia Roque-Fermin, 41, of Arlington Heights
Investigators later reviewed video surveillance footage from the shrine which shows Roque-Fermin carrying objects such as statues, buckets, chairs, and planter pots toward the cave/grotto area of the shrine, police said. She is then seen starting a fire and continuing to carry surrounding objects toward the blaze to stoke the flames, police said.
The fire is estimated to have caused more than $78,000 in damages to the shrine, police said.
A spokesman for the shrine said Tuesday that the fire significantly damaged an outdoor chapel surrounding a statue of Jesus on the west plaza of the shrine. That statue and statues of St. Jude and St. Michael the Archangel were destroyed by the fire, the official said.
The spokesman said video surveillance shows the woman appears to be in distress while setting the fire.
Commemorating reported visions of Jesus’ mother, Mary, in Mexico City in 1531, the site is the most-visited shrine in the U.S. dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, behind only the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico.
Every December, the shrine hosts the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which draws more than 100,000 pilgrims from across the region for special Masses and other events.
