A Valparaiso area man is in custody on charges of murder and arson for a fatal fire Oct. 31 at a group home in the Shorewood Forest subdivision in Union Township, according to court documents.
Robert Delano Bone, 69, of the 400 block of Shorewood Court and a resident of the group home, was booked into the Porter County Jail Friday afternoon, according to online jail records.
Bone, according to court documents, allegedly caused a fatal fire after igniting a diaper in his bedroom and later told investigators that he wasn’t thinking straight and “(expletive) up.”
Seven people were in the home at the time, including its owner and caretaker and her son, and five group home residents, and all of them were taken to area hospitals after the fire.
Billy Bishop, 60, a resident of the group home, died after he was airlifted to a Chicago hospital after the fire as a result of thermal injury and further complications from that injury per the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, charges state.
The caretaker and her son, as well as two residents, were transported to St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart, while Bone and another resident were taken to Northwest Health-Porter, according to the charges.
The charges against Bone, filed Dec. 23, include murder in the perpetration of an arson, a Level 1 felony; arson, a Level 4 felony; and reckless homicide, a Level 5 felony, according to court documents. An online court docket does not yet list an initial hearing for Bone.
Deputies with the Porter County Sheriff’s Department were called to the home at 3:05 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 31, for a house fire with people trapped inside, charges state.
Officers found multiple people outside the residence but were “advised more people were inside the burning structure,” documents state.
Officers found a female in the foyer and escorted her to the porch and heard a male voice in another room “yell out for help,” according to the charges. Officers were able to drag him out of the house and he advised there was a third person upstairs.
Because of the flames and the fire, a deputy “could not make his way up the stairs to rescue the other male. The upstairs male was later identified as Billy Bishop,” according to the charges. Firefighters found him unconscious at the top of the stairs.
Fire investigators told the police that the fire started in Bone’s bedroom, charges state.
The caretaker told police after she was released from the hospital that she woke up at 2:54 a.m. that day because another disabled resident needed to use the bathroom. While walking in the home to help that person, “she observed an orange glow coming from Robert Bone’s bedroom. When she entered Robert Bone’s bedroom, she observed Robert to be awake and staring at 2 burning diapers on the floor in front of him,” according to court records.
“She helped Robert out of the room. The diapers caught the curtains in the room on fire, which led to the house catching on fire.”
Bone told investigators he had lived at the group home for a few months and gave investigators conflicting stories about how the fire started, initially stating it was in a kitchen trash can from a cigarette, documents state, and later said he and Bishop “were talking about having a bonfire in the backyard just before the fire started.”
Bone told investigators he and Bishop “got pretty serious about the bonfire” and what they needed, and “It got out of hand.”
Bone told police he lit one of the diapers on fire with a lighter and the fire got out of hand in minutes.
“I’m starting to see that I (expletive) up,” Bone told investigators in charging documents. “I actually wasn’t thinking straight and I (expletive) up.”
alavalley@chicagotribune.com