The Department of Public Safety released artist renderings Thursday of a suspect and pictures of a suspicious vehicle from the night of Governor's Mansion fire.
In the early morning hours of June 8, 2008, a still unknown person set the mansion on fire.
A $50,000 reward is offered for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible.
The Texas Ranger-led DPS task force reviewed thousands of hours of video from 11 surveillance cameras. Investigators identified a suspicious vehicle -- a white Jeep Cherokee, whose occupants were seen taking pictures of the mansion at 2 a.m. on June 4, 2008. That was four hours before the mansion was set on fire.
Texas Rangers tracked down the Jeep's owner and the twopassengers, who are all considered persons of interest in the investigation. Investigators connected one of them to an Austin-based anarchist group that was linked to a planned attack on the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in September 2008, which involved Molotov cocktails.
Grainy surveillance video released earlier shows a hooded person walking up to the front porch of the mansion and throwing what detectives describe as a Molotov cocktail onto the porch. The fire spread quickly. The flames roared through the house, breaking up through the roof top. It took hundreds of firefighters to contain it.
The State Board of Preservation is overseeing the renovation.
