A woman burned a pagan church on Gulf Road to the ground Friday evening after a hostile attempt a day earlier to reclaim her late father’s property, police said. No one was injured, police said.

Evan Walgren, 46, was arrested and charged with arson and breaking and entering The Nature Church at 140 Gulf Road, a home bequeathed to the church by her late father, Eric L. Walgren in 1998. 

Belchertown Police Officer Neil T. Lozier said Walgren was arrested on Thursday after she threw boulders through the front doors, burst into house and attempted to assault one of the residents with a dumbbell.”Her father left the house to the church. She’s saying the house goes to her if the church is no longer in existence, and she believes the church is no longer in existence,” Lozier said yesterday. He did not know how many members the church counts among its congregation, but said two people lived there, and a man named Jason Dean introduced himself as the president.Officers of the church listed in state corporate filings could not be reached yesterday. Lozier said Walgren does not have a local address; her last known address was in South Carolina.

Lozier said there was no history of strife between Walgren and members of the church.

Police said they were dispatched to 140 Gulf Road on Thursday for a disturbance involving a “property dispute.” Walgren was charged then with breaking and entering in the daytime, malicious property damage and trespassing. She was arraigned on Friday and released on her own recognizance. At around 6:20 that evening, Belchertown police and fire departments responded to the house to find it fully engulfed in flames, police said.

After police and state fire marshals investigated, Walgren was arrested. She is being held pending her arraignment tomorrow in Eastern Hampshire District Court on the new charges.

A published obituary shows Eric Walgren died at 59 in 1998. The memorial posting said Walgren was a political activist, poet, artist and farmer.

Source: The Republican

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