Wichita woman guilty in death of friend who caught fire while stealing copper
A Wichita woman has pleaded guilty in the death of a friend who suffered electrical burns while they were stealing metal for scrap from a vacant commercial building last year.
Molly M. Hubbard, 36, was arrested after 39-year-old Ryan Crawford of Wichita died from severe burns to his face, arms, legs and buttocks. Court records say Crawford’s clothes caught fire from an arc flash from an energized electrical panel at the empty former Convergys call center at 7236 E. Harry Court, where the pair broke in on July 17, 2025.
Hubbard called 911 around 5:15 a.m. that morning, saying Crawford was in the street on fire.
But then she drove off, leaving him to die, an affidavit says.
Initially, Hubbard claimed she saw Crawford while she was driving in the area scrapping metal but hadn’t seen him for a week before that.
She later told her mother in text messages that she had been in the building with Crawford “burglarizing the place for copper” when the fire started, according to the affidavit. In the messages, she told her mom that she had guided Crawford away from the fire with her voice, told him to roll on the ground and then drove past him while she called 911.
Hubbard had a history of selling copper wiring to a local metal scrapping business and also of breaking into vacant buildings, according to the affidavit.
Her mother turned her into police.
Crawford died on July 19, 2025, during a skin graft surgery to treat second- and third-degree burns. A fire investigator said the burns on Crawford’s body and damage to the building were “consistent with an arc flash resulting from contact with energized electrical service wiring,” the affidavit says.
Authorities found a screwdriver next to the building’s control panel, as well as a piece of burned shirt, a flashlight, a cellphone and a bag of tools. Before he died, Crawford told police he went into the building through an unlocked door to escape rain and something popped or exploded while he and a person he didn’t know were trying to find their way around in the dark.
Hubbard entered the guilty plea at her arraignment Tuesday, court records show. She is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 23.
