The mother once praised the man accused in the blast before police said later evidence pointed back at him.
PLUM, Pa. — In the first days after a house explosion tore through a family home in this Pittsburgh suburb, Laura Petty publicly thanked Jacob Rabb for helping save their children. Nearly four years later, police charged Rabb with trying to kill the same family.
That reversal is what gives the case its force. Authorities say the April 2022 blast that leveled the family’s home on Hialeah Drive was intentional, not accidental, and that the father of the household set it in motion by tampering with a gas connection. The allegations arrived after the couple split, after Petty sought court protection, and after investigators said later evidence, including handwritten notes and gas-use records, changed the direction of the case.
On the night of April 22, 2022, Petty, Rabb and their three sons were home in the Holiday Park neighborhood when the house exploded. The youngest boys, then 6 and 2, got out with the adults. Their oldest son, then 11, was in the basement playing video games and escaped through a window, but he suffered first-degree burns. In an interview soon after the blast, Petty said she had no memory of hearing or feeling the explosion and woke up with the roof collapsed around her. She said Rabb was “running around making sure we all got out safe,” a description that became part of the public understanding of the event before the criminal complaint turned that account upside down.
The next chapter unfolded away from the burned lot. According to the complaint, Petty later separated from Rabb and filed a Protection from Abuse order in May 2023. Investigators said she told police that after the breakup she found two handwritten notes hidden in a kitchen cabinet. One said in part, “If I can’t have her no one will or my kids…” Another said, “P.S. I did blow up the house.” Police said Rabb later violated the order and threatened Petty with a knife. In that telling, the case widened beyond one violent night and began to look like a domestic violence prosecution with a longer trail of threats, fear and alleged admissions.
Only after that did the fire evidence come into sharper public view. Police said Peoples Gas data showed unusually high gas consumption at the house on three separate days during the month of the explosion. Investigators alleged Rabb manually disconnected the dryer’s gas connection on those occasions, including the day of the blast. A deputy fire marshal concluded that natural gas vapors released through manual manipulation of a gas line caused the fire, according to the complaint. Police also said Rabb’s father told them his son admitted causing the explosion. Rabb denied telling Petty that he was responsible, according to published accounts. The physical evidence and the alleged statements now sit together at the center of the criminal case.
For neighbors, the news reframed a night they had never forgotten. One nearby resident, Akil Washington, said he heard screams and ran toward the flames to help. “We were right in the flames,” Washington said as he recalled trying to tear down a fence to get Petty out. The property is now a vacant lot, but the memory of the blast stayed alive on the block because it had never been fully explained. The borough also carries broader memories of house explosions, making every unanswered question about fire cause feel heavier in Plum than it might elsewhere.
The prosecution moved forward with serious charges: multiple counts of attempted criminal homicide, aggravated arson and arson-related offenses. Rabb, 41, was arraigned in March and jailed without bail. At that point, a preliminary hearing had been scheduled for March 18. The case still has major open questions, including how prosecutors will present motive, whether defense lawyers will challenge the note evidence and whether the gas analysis can tie intent to the exact timing of the blast beyond a reasonable doubt.
For now, the story stands in two sharply different versions: the one neighbors and even Petty first lived through, in which a father helped pull his family from the wreckage, and the one police now allege, in which that same father caused the destruction and left behind words that investigators say explained why.
Author note: Last updated April 6, 2026.