Alabama Woman Pleads Guilty in Insurance Case

A Semmes, Alabama woman pleaded guilty in Mobile to charges that she hired her nephew to burn down her house for insurance money last year.

Sarah Juanita Comstock and her sister, Donna Kirkland Venerable, pleaded guilty last week to aiding and abetting Michael Venerable in traveling across state lines to commit a crime of violence. Prosecutors agreed to recommend the shortest sentence called for under advisory guidelines.

For Comstock, that would be three years and 10 months, under an estimate provided by the U.S. Probation Office.

A passerby found Michael Venerable dead the morning after the fire at the side of a road in Florida’s Pasco County. Although he had been badly burned, the plea agreement indicates that the death certificate points to a drug overdose as the cause of death.