MD Woman Gets Four Life Sentences Plus 20 for House Fire That Killed Four

Lilly Price

The Aegis, Bel Air, Md.

(TNS)

Dec. 21—An Edgewood woman was sentenced to four life sentences plus 20 years for setting a house fire that killed four people and injured three others.

A Harford County Circuit Court jury found Bobbie Sue Hodge, 63, guilty of first-degree arson, felony murder and assault in an October trial. She faced a maximum sentence of four life sentences plus 30 years.

Hodge was represented by a public defender. The Maryland Office of the Public Defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hodge was one of nine people who lived in a three-story townhouse in the 1800 block of Simons Court in Edgewood when the fire happened in the early morning hours of May 9, 2019. Ernest Lee, 57, Dionne Hill, 32, and Kimberly Shupe, 47, died in the fire that law enforcement officers determined Hodge had set.

Lee called 911 around 2:30 a.m. to report the fire, which engulfed the third floor of the house, where Lee, Hill and Shupe lived and died. Marquise St. John, who also lived on the third floor, jumped out of a bedroom window and broke his ankle and arm.

Mary Elizabeth Kennedy, 72, who lived on the second floor, was rescued but died months later from severe burns.

Hodge and two other occupants escaped the fire. She was charged with second-degree assault for endangering the surviving occupants.

The Maryland State Fire Marshal, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosions, and the Harford County Sheriff's Office conducted a joint investigation and later charged Hodge with arson and murder. Local and federal authorities said in 2019 that Hodge made "multiple threats" to burn the townhouse." Officials said the town house was set up as an illegal group home that fit nine people.

Investigators determined the fire caused $300,000 in damages to the home where the fire started and the five others to which the fire extended.

The origin of the fire was the second floor of the living room, and the cause was classified as incendiary, meaning it was set either intentionally or accidentally during other criminal activity. Witnesses also said they saw Hodge leave the room where the fire started at the time, and a recorded call from one of the deceased occupants named Hodge as the person who started the fire, officers wrote in charging documents.

"This tragedy shocked our Harford County community. It is my hope that this verdict and now sentence is a step towards healing for the surviving victims and the families of those who lost loved ones," Harford County State's Attorney Albert Peisiner Jr. said in a statement.

Hodge's trial was postponed at least three times since she was arrested in July 2019. Hodge was committed to a Maryland Department of Health facility in March 2021 after being found not competent to stand trial. In September, health department officials and the court found her competency was restored.

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