SLIPPERY ROCK — Jennifer C. Brown didn’t like the conditions at the rental home where her daughter and grandchildren were living, a state police investigator testified.

Rats had invaded the premises, garbage was piled high, there was little heat.

Her alleged solution to the problem: burn down the house.

“She thought this was the best way to get her daughter out of the house,” Trooper Duwayne Baird said in recounting Brown’s purported confession, during testimony at a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Slippery Rock.

District Judge Lewis Stoughton ordered the 42-year-old Brown of Clearfield Township held for trial on arson and other charges.

The defendant is accused of deliberately setting a fire about 9 a.m. Feb. 13 that destroyed the small two-story home at 137 Etna Road in Slippery Rock Township.

Christine Lipke, Brown’s daughter, and her two young children were not at home and no one was injured in the blaze. The house, owned by Chad Snow, was destroyed.

Police spoke to Lipke after the fire and learned that Brown had been visiting at the home that morning.

The defendant was still there after Lipke left for work and her children went to school and to the baby sitter’s house.

Brown later walked about half a mile to a friend’s house on Route 173 in Slippery Rock Township. Dawna D’Amico answered a knock at the door and found the defendant.

She invited Brown in for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. The two chatted.

D’Amico testified at Wednesday’s hearing about her conversation with Brown that morning.

“I believe she said, ‘I think it’s going to be a bad day,’” D’Amico said.

Soon after, she recalled, Brown asked, “Did you hear sirens?” I said, ‘No.”

But just a few minutes later, D’Amico testified, she heard sirens and saw fire trucks traveling down the road.

It wouldn’t be long before she got a telephone call from a friend, informing her that Lipke’s house was on fire.

“The house was completed burned to the ground,” said Baird, a deputy fire marshal. The extensive damage left him with few clues about how the fire started.

Questioned by Brown’s attorney, public defender Joe Smith, Baird conceded he collected no physical evidence to suggest the blaze had been deliberately set.

But on Feb. 28, the trooper got a call from the Clarion Psychiatric Center, where Brown had been admitted as a patient after allegedly threatening to burn down the Ridgeview Boarding Home, where she lived.

An official at the psychiatric facility advised police that Brown had admitted starting the fire at her daughter‘s home, according to court documents.

The defendant gave a similar confession to Baird on March 4 during an interview at the barracks in Butler Township. He said Brown spoke without an attorney after waiving her Miranda rights.

“She said she took a bed sheet and laid it on the floor (in a back bedroom),” Baird testified. “She took a lighter and lit (the sheet) on fire. She said she put the lighter in her pocket. She said she closed and locked the door and walked to (D’Amico’s) house.”

Prosecutor Ben Simon, a Butler County assistant district attorney, asked Baird if Brown provided a motive.

“She thought the conditions were deplorable inside the house,” Baird said.

Much of Smith’s cross-examination focused on Brown’s alleged confession.

Baird acknowledged Brown’s statement was not recorded, nor did she offer it in writing.

“Did my client discuss her state of mental health? Smith asked

“No,” Baird replied.

Following the hearing, Smith said Brown’s statement to police would likely be a “suppression issue.”

He suggested he could challenge its admissibility because police failed to ascertain her mental state before interviewing her.

Smith said he also planned to seek a mental health evaluation for Brown in hopes of getting her into a hospital.

The defendant remains in the Butler County Prison, where she was placed on $10,000 bail upon her arrest March 4.

But following testimony, Stoughton, who was filling in for District Judge Tim Shaffer, increased Brown’s bail to $50,000.

Stoughton’s decision came after Simon asked for the higher bail, arguing that she posed a danger to herself and the community.