Carol Field, the 66-year-old Standish resident and former Standish Subway sandwich shop employee accused of setting fire to the Raymond Hill Baptist Church and multiple other fires, has been indicted by a York County grand jury on five additional counts of arson.

Field’s Portland-based attorney John Paul DeGrinney had no comment when contacted Friday.

Field remains behind bars in York County Jail on $100,000 bail. She was originally arrested Sept. 30 at her Standish Glen home and charged with three class A counts of arson for a Sept. 16, 2011, fire in Limerick that damaged a vacant home on Route 11 and one on Sept. 22, 2010 near a propane tank at Plummer’s Hardware store on Main Street in Waterboro. Field was also charged with setting the church fire in Raymond that last summer. According to the state fire marshal’s office, each count is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Investigators say Field is a suspect in as many as 18 fires at vacant buildings and wooded areas in Cumberland and York counties. No one was hurt in any of the fires. The five additional charges – bringing the total to eight – that Field was indicted on this week occurred in August and September of 2011.

A team of agents from the State Fire Marshal’s Office, the Maine Forest Service, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the York and Cumberland sheriff’s offices combined efforts this summer to investigate the fires.

Field became a suspect in early September after a witness saw a car leaving one of the fire scenes and gave investigators a partial license plate number, which led them to her Standish address.

The Lakes Region Weekly interviewed the eyewitness, who wished to remain anonymous.

According to the witness, on Friday, Sept. 16, a car with its brake lights on was parked on the roadway in front of an unoccupied home on Central Avenue in Limerick. Thinking it strange that the car, a blue Chevrolet Cavalier, remained parked for about five minutes in front of an unoccupied dwelling, the witness went out to investigate. As the witness approached the car, they noticed a fire in progress at the home.

The witness then saw the suspicious car spin around in the road and drive off. Not able to see the license plate as the vehicle drove by, the witness, believing the driver was linked to the fire in progress, got in their own car and followed the suspect’s vehicle. After catching up to the car, the witness recorded the license plate and called 911. Dispatchers relayed the information to investigators who could not locate the license plate saying the numbers didn’t match.

The next morning, the witness went into Limerick and happened to notice a blue Cavalier with a similar license plate. The witness recorded the proper plate number – the original recording was off by two digits – and called police with a cell phone. Police told the witness to stay with the vehicle and that a Maine State Police trooper would arrive shortly. The witness stayed on the phone with the dispatcher while following the Chevy Cavalier. Within minutes, a trooper pulled up in back of the witness’ car communicating with the witness to pull over and to follow the trooper’s vehicle.

According to the witness, the driver was not an older woman, although an older woman in her 60s arrived on scene shortly afterward to retrieve the vehicle.

The case has made news around the country due to the involvement of a suspect who doesn’t fit the usual arsonist profile. Degrinney, a criminal defense attorney in Portland based in Portland, initially said that Field is intending to enter a “not-guilty plea across the board” for the three counts she is charged with as well as any further arson charges.

“She strikes me as a very nice older lady, the type that would never hurt a fly,” DeGrinney said in October when his client was arrested, “But she has a lot going on, she’s had a very rough life. And she certainly has some health and mental health issues.”