BALTIMORE COUNTY — Three months ago, an overnight explosion leveled a Rosedale home leaving behind all kinds of debris that now sit behind a fence.
It was what was missing from that debris pile that tipped investigators off that something wasn’t right. There was no personal clothing or shoes. Neither of the homeowners’ cars were in the driveway either.
Watch as neighbors react to the arrest
Neighbor Shirley Muir also had a feeling.
“I kinda thought it. Because, both the cars were gone and we knew— they said he went to Jamaica and all. Figured that something was up,” she said. “Everybody was over there thinking that, I think. I know my husband and son were too.”
The fiery explosion on July 1 was a terrifying wake up call around 2 a.m. for neighbors on Callo Lane. It sent debris across the street, like the home’s front bay windows, and all across the block.
Muir feared for her own home about two doors down.
“I just kept on going, watering it down, watering the roof and stuff. Make sure it didn’t catch on fire,” she said.
Police have charged 66-year-old Mark Hawkins Sr. for intentionally setting the blaze by manually disconnecting a water heater gas line, and leaving an electric range oven on— the “potential competent ignition source for a fuel-air explosive mixture” according to charging documents obtained by WMAR-2 News.
Investigators found the display panel’s two knobs turned to the “on” position within the debris. BGE also reported an “unusually large” increase in natural gas flow on the consumer side, notably not from a gas leak.
Police later learned that Hawkins had bought one-way tickets and had no plan to return to the country. He eventually did on July 6.
Some neighbors who WMAR-2 News’s Blair Sabol spoke to off camera expressed disbelief, and concern that his actions could have killed someone.
“Terrible thing he did but luckily the lady in the next house over there she was in like a nursing home or something nobody was in that house. But these over here have a lady downstairs in a wheelchair and everything.”
Hawkins is facing 1st degree arson and malicious burning. He faces up to 35 years in prison, if convicted.
He is currently being held without bail and has a hearing scheduled on October 24.
