A serial arsonist behind a string of blazes in Forest Hills, Queens, taunted police like a Riddler wannabe — leaving behind a coded message at one fire scene that dared cops to solve his puzzle, sources said. But the firebug was as overconfident as his Batman-comic counterpart — since police were quickly able to crack the code and discover his identity.
“Decode this message to find the person who caused the fire,” the clever-in-his-own-mind arsonist wrote in the missive, which he left behind at the scene of a Nov. 25 fire at a Forest Hills construction site at 108-47 67th Drive. After unscrambling the message, cops got the name of a Forest Hills resident, who they suspect is responsible for at least six fires in the area over the past four weeks, according to another police source.
Some of the fires have targeted new single-family mansions under construction in the neighborhood’s tony Cord Meyer section. The blazes have left residents on edge.
“Setting fires is bad but the leaving riddles near the fire scene part is crazy,” said Dan Casteneda, 37.
“This is what happens when mentally disturbed people read too many comic books.”