Case: 24-2470205

Date: September 3, 2024

Time: 5:38 a.m.

Location: 502 W. Longspur Boulevard

On December 17, 2024, a Travis County grand jury indicted Pavel Nikolayevich Sapronov, 38, for the offense of Arson Causing Serious Bodily Injury, a first-degree felony.  

This case began on September 3 when Austin Fire Department (AFD) crews responded to an apartment complex located at 502 W. Longspur Boulevard. Upon arrival, they located fires on two second floor balconies, and a fire in the stairwell on the same floor. Firefighters rescued two trapped individuals from the bedroom window of a third-story apartment as part of the response. The victims, a man and woman, were transported to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries.

AFD investigators processed the scene and conducted interviews, during which they learned the suspect, later identified as Pavel Nikolayevich Sapronov, had been communicating for several days from different phone numbers with a woman he’d connected with on Grindr. Sapronov met up with the woman days earlier at a hotel where he’d attacked her upon arrival, at which time her boyfriend intervened. Sapronov attempted a second, violent rendezvous at the apartment days later, but was again forcibly removed from the apartment by the woman’s boyfriend.

Police and fire investigators utilized phone number records, a vehicle description provided by witnesses and video evidence to identify Sapronov and place him at the scene of the fires that investigators determined had been intentionally set. Pavel Nikolayevich Sapronov was booked into Travis County Jail on September 16, 2024. His bond has been set at $110,000.

The two victims rescued from the third-floor apartment received treatment and are continuing to recover.

Pavel Nikolayevich Sapronov, 38