A western Pennsylvania man has been charged nearly four years after investigators say he intentionally caused a gas explosion that destroyed his family’s home and injured his partner and three young sons in Plum, just east of Pittsburgh.
The charges against Jacob Rabb, 41, turned a long-unsolved neighborhood mystery into a criminal case this week. Police say the April 22, 2022, blast was not an accident but the result of a gas line being manually disconnected inside the Hialeah Drive house. The case matters now because prosecutors are moving forward with multiple felony counts, including attempted criminal homicide and aggravated arson, after a long investigation that drew on gas-use records, fire analysis and notes later found inside the home.
According to court records described by local news outlets, the explosion happened shortly before 11:30 p.m. at the family’s home in Plum’s Holiday Park neighborhood. Laura Petty and the couple’s three sons, then ages 11, 6 and 2, were inside with Rabb when the house exploded and caught fire. The oldest boy was in the basement playing video games and got out through a window, while the adults and younger children also escaped before firefighters arrived. One child suffered first-degree burns. In the first hours after the blast, relatives told reporters the family was expected to survive, even though the house was reduced to rubble and neighboring homes were damaged. Petty later told reporters she woke up with part of the roof collapsed around her and at the time believed Rabb had helped save the family as flames spread through what had been a quiet residential block.
Investigators now say the evidence points in a different direction. Police reviewed Peoples Gas data and found unusually high gas consumption on three late-night occasions in the days before the explosion. Court papers said those readings reached levels an engineer concluded were higher than what the home’s appliances could normally use, suggesting gas was escaping into the house. Investigators say Rabb manually disconnected the dryer’s gas connection, then turned the gas back on, allowing vapors to build up until a nearby furnace likely ignited them. A deputy fire marshal determined the cause was natural gas vapors released through manual manipulation of a gas line, according to the complaint. The case gathered more weight after Petty later filed for protection from abuse and told police she found handwritten notes in a kitchen cabinet, including one that admitted blowing up the house. Police also said Rabb’s father told detectives his son had admitted causing the explosion. When later interviewed, Rabb denied telling Petty he caused the blast, though court records say he acknowledged writing one of the notes.
The criminal accusations arrived after years of uncertainty for the neighborhood. In the days after the explosion, residents described hearing a violent boom that felt like a crash against their own houses. Firefighters said the home was fully involved when they arrived and had to protect the structures on both sides before attacking the main fire. For a long time, neighbors had no public answer for what caused the blast, and some assumed it was a routine gas accident. That sense of unease deepened in Plum after a separate house explosion in the borough in August 2023 killed six people and destroyed three homes. Police have stressed the two cases are unrelated, but the later tragedy kept local concern about home explosions high. The Hialeah Drive property itself became a symbol of that uncertainty. The house was never rebuilt, the site sat vacant for years, and property records cited by local reporting show the lot changed hands earlier this year. What once looked like a family’s recovery from disaster is now being recast by investigators as the scene of a deliberate act that injured the same people living inside.
Rabb now faces more than a dozen counts. Reports on the complaint say the charges include four counts each of attempted criminal homicide, aggravated arson and arson endangering persons, along with arson endangering property and causing or risking a catastrophe. He was arraigned this week and is being held in the Allegheny County Jail without bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 18. At that stage, prosecutors are expected to outline the basic evidence supporting the charges, while the court decides whether the case should move forward. No trial date has been announced. The court filing also ties the explosion investigation to events that happened after the family separated. Police said Petty sought a protection-from-abuse order in May 2023 and later reported that Rabb violated it and threatened her with a knife. Local television reporting on the complaint said officers were also told Rabb had made suicidal statements after the relationship ended and left farewell videos for family members during a missing-person episode in late 2022. Those details are not the charges driving the explosion case, but they help explain why investigators treated the later notes and statements as important evidence.
Neighbors who lived through the blast have become some of the clearest voices in describing what happened on the ground. Akil Washington, who lives a few houses away, said he and others rushed toward the burning home after hearing the explosion. “We could hear the young lady hollering and screaming,” Washington told WTAE, describing the chaotic rescue effort. Another neighbor, Harriet Schwartz, told WPXI that “the garage door ended up in our front yard,” capturing the force of the blast in one image. Washington has also said the new charges were hard to process after so much time had passed. His reaction matched the broader mood in the neighborhood, where relief at finally getting answers has mixed with disbelief over what police now allege. The image of a father once praised for getting his family out has been replaced by court claims that he set the conditions for the fire himself. That change has made the case more than another arson prosecution. It has become a painful re-reading of a night many people thought they already understood.
As of Wednesday, Rabb remained jailed without bail, and the case was headed toward next week’s preliminary hearing. The next major step is March 18, when a judge will review whether prosecutors have enough evidence to send the case deeper into the Allegheny County court system.
Author note: Last updated March 11, 2026.