NORWICH, Conn. — When fires at abandoned buildings in Norwich began popping up over the summer, Assistant Chief Mark Gilot of the Norwich Fire Marshal's office began investigating as if they were connected.

There were four fires since July, and they occurred at a variety of vacant places: a single-family house, a multi-family house, a shuttered car wash, and even a small, old state-owned garage. But they all had enough similarities to give the investigator a theory.

“(The fires) all had to do with homeless people living in there," Gilot said. "We don’t know the intent, we don’t know if they were on purpose or accidental, but they all had to do with the homeless living in there.”

The trespassers were gone by the time fire crews arrived to put out the fires, but evidence of people livi

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