A woman was killed Tuesday in a suspicious fire that ripped through a home awaiting auction in Bowie, officials said.
Prince George’s fire officials have not released the identity of the badly burned person they found in a second-floor bedroom, but neighbors say it was that of a 47-year-old woman who lived there.
Officials were unsure as of Tuesday evening what ignited the 4:45 a.m. fire or why the water to the sprinkler system for the house at 15315 Jenkins Road had been turned off.
The fire started in the garage and spread to the second floor, quickly engulfing the frame home in flames, investigators said. It took firefighters more than an hour to douse the fire from outside after the blaze overwhelmed them when they tried to enter the home, fire department spokesman Mark Brady said.
Sheila Griffith, who lives nearby, said she was outside on her morning walk when she saw the flames.
“I was facing the back of the house, and it was in utter flames,” Griffith said. “Just that quickly, it went up, and the roof went tumbling down.”
Neighbors said they heard popping sounds, like gunfire, coming from the house, but Brady said that could have been anything, such as the tires popping on the Corvette parked in the garage or windows blowing out from the intense heat.
The body, which was found in a master bedroom that sits directly above the garage, has been sent to a medical examiner who will determine both cause of death and the identity.
Neighbors said the woman’s son, a high school senior, was away on vacation in Virginia with his father, who did not live there. A daughter, who they said was 19, had recently moved out.
The house had been on the market for six months, and the woman was having a tough time finding a buyer. A large sign in front of the home said it was up for public auction, and the starting bid for the four-bedroom, 2,900-square-foot house is listed at $389,000 on beltwayauctions.com.
Auctions are a rarity in the upper-middle-class neighborhood, residents said, although there are many homes up for sale. While the now-destroyed home was not yet officially under foreclosure, the threat was palpable in the neighborhood.
“You don’t want to say it’s all the foreclosure thing,” Griffith said. “You just don’t know, but the sign really stands out.”
