MUNCIE, Ind. -- A hunch by a Ball State university police detective led to the arrest Tuesday of three people charged with setting fire to seven churches throughout southern Indiana.

Sgt. Steve Hiatt, an 18-year veteran with university police, learned from ambulance radio transmissions that a man was being treated for burns at Ball Memorial Hospital and became curious of the circumstances. After preliminary inquiries, Hiatt notified investigators for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who arrested Jay Scott Ballinger of Yorktown and two others in connection with the church fires.

"These fires may have scorched the structures but they did not seer the spirit of the communities in which the fires are located," said Bill Lann Lee, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights for the Southern District of Indiana.

Investigators from the ATF, FBI, Indiana State Fire Marshal, Indianapolis Police Department, Indiana State Police and other agencies had been working on 43 incidents of church arson since 1993.

Hiatt and UPD detective Randy Rector assisted ATF and the state fire marshal in conducting interviews and serving search warrants in the case.