ALFRED — An 18-year-old man facing murder and arson charges allegedly set a Biddeford apartment building ablaze to scare his former girlfriend, who lived there. The girl, 16, and her parents survived, but two men ”“ asleep in another apartment ”“ died of smoke inhalation.

“I didn’t mean to kill those two people,” Dylan Lee Collins allegedly wrote in a digital diary, portions of which were transcribed in an affidavit state police prepared supporting a warrant for his arrest. “Those were collateral damage, unfortunate casualties,” the diary reads. “So I am sorry they died, I mean that in the most sincerest and honest ways possible, but I refuse to go to jail for the rest of my life because I accidentally killed two people.”

Collins, who allegedly told a police investigator he set the fire to scare his former girlfriend, whom he saw kissing another man the previous day, made a brief appearance before Justice Paul Fritzsche at York County Superior Court Friday. Fritzsche asked Collins if he wanted to plead not guilty. The young man glanced at his lawyer, William Ashe, briefly, before replying “yes,” in a dull monotone.

The judge, acting on the request of both prosecutors and defense counsel, ordered Collins to undergo 60 days observation and treatment at Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta as soon as a bed is available. Justice Fritzsche also vacated the impoundment on the police affidavit, outlining probable cause to arrest Collins.

The fire in the multi-unit apartment building at 35 Main St. in Biddeford was reported about 3:47 a.m. Sept. 18. Firefighters rescued the 16-year-old former girlfriend and her parents from their apartment by smashing the second floor windows and bringing them down a ladder.

Michael Moore, 23, and James Ford, 21, were located by firefighters in the third-floor sleeping area of their apartment, suffering from severe smoke inhalation. Moore died the following day, Sept. 19, and Ford died Oct. 14. Both men perished from respiratory injuries caused by smoke inhalation incurred during the fire, the state medical examiner’s office told investigators.

The 16-year-old, whom the Journal Tribune is not identifying because she is a minor, told a Maine State Police investigator that she’s had a prior two-month relationship with Collins, but they had broken up in December 2013. She said she’d had minimal contact with her former boyfriend until two weeks before the fire, when he allegedly attempted to contact her through Facebook.

Collins outlined his thoughts in the digital diary, which his mother, Donna Pitcher, took to the police department Nov. 5. Pitcher was worried that her son was going to hurt himself or someone else. She told police he had recently been released from a mental health unit at Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford; that he had punched holes in her apartment walls, smashed her computer and threatened to hit her; and that he had allegedly written notes outlining his desire to kill his mother and others, and in so doing, force police to kill him.

His digital diary, dated Oct. 27, police said in the affidavit, outlined his thoughts about what had transpired.

“I was pretty confident that I was gonna get away with it, I left no evidence at the scene or anything that could link me in any possible way,” he allegedly said, in part. “I used cash instead of a credit cards to buy the lighter and the rubbing alcohol so it wouldn’t show up in bank statements.”

Biddeford Police took Collins into protective custody for a mental health evaluation Nov. 5. At the time of his arrest, he was in possession of a loaded, 12-gauge shotgun with a shortened stock, concealed in a bag.

Collins allegedly told Maine State Police Detective Kristopher Kennedy that he was aware the stairwell he lit on fire was the only means of exit for his former girlfriend’s apartment.

Collins was returned to York County Jail Friday, where he will remain until there is room for him at Riverview. He jumped from a second-tier landing there in late November, in an apparent attempt to harm himself, jail officials said at the time.

Pitcher, his mother, had contacted Biddeford Police in July after she said she found flammable objects and bomb-making materials in her son’s room. He was hospitalized for about a month. As well, she called police twice in October with concerns about her son’s behavior.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or [email protected].