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5 indicted on arson charges after posting video on social media, prosecutors say

Top row (from left to right): Lanier Daniel Brooking, Collin Landon Gwinn, and Bryan Thomas Libourel. Bottom row (from left to right): Stone Lloyd Matheson and Brandon Andrew Nino Photo: Coweta County Sheriff's Office

COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — Five metro Atlanta men who prosecutors say got drunk, set a fire at a vacant home and posted a video of their exploits have been indicted on arson charges.

The April 19 fire burned the Sharpsburg home to the ground and posed a threat to the surrounding woods, a Coweta County fire official said. Prosecutors accused the men of walking away as the flames grew.

A Coweta County grand jury recently charged all five — Collin Landon Gwinn, 20, Bryan Thomas Libourel, 18, Stone Lloyd Matheson, 19, and Brandon Andrew Nino, 20, all of Newnan, and Lanier Daniel Brooking, 19, of Sharpsburg — with first-degree arson, first-degree arson of lands and second-degree criminal damage to property.

They are now preparing for trial. Libourel, Matheson and Nino remain in the county jail, while Brooking and Gwinn were released on bond.

All five were arrested later the same day after investigators with the Coweta County fire department were tipped off to a cellphone video circulating on social media.

In the video, the men can be seen inside the home in the 500 block of McIntosh Trail, damaging windows with a chair, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol before setting a couch on fire in the living room, according to an incident report previously obtained by AJC.com.

Deputies said the men can be heard cheering as the flames grew to an estimated 15 feet. Then, according to the report, they left the scene.

A fire break was necessary to prevent the blaze from spreading and damaging nearby homes, deputies said.

The grand jury charged in the indictments that Gwinn, Libourel, Matheson, Nino and Brooking acted “under such circumstances that it was reasonably foreseeable that human life was endangered.”

A developer owned the home and no one was living there at the time, WSBTV reported.