Mother Accused Of Entrapping Children And Setting Webster House On Fire Could Walk

CONCORD, NH — After more than four years, a woman accused of setting a house on fire in Webster while her children were inside is scheduled to plead insanity in Merrimack County Superior Court on Monday afternoon.

She may also walk without spending time in jail or a psychiatric hospital.

Mary Elizabeth “Liz” Corliss, 41, of Webster, faces felony arson, reckless conduct-domestic violence with a deadly weapon, and second-degree assault-deadly weapon charges after an investigation into a fire at a home on Deer Meadow Road in Webster on Feb. 24, 2021. Her children, a son and daughter, as well as herself, were burned during the blaze.

On the date in question, Webster fire and rescue teams, as well as firefighters from Boscawen, Bow, Concord, Chichester, Franklin, Henniker, Hopkinton, and Warner, were called to a late afternoon fire. Initial reports stated people were trapped inside the home, smoke was flowing from the windows, and at least one person was attempting to escape from the home’s second-story.

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Webster Fire Chief Emmett Bean Sr. was one of the first people to arrive at the fire and confirmed a woman needed to be rescued from the second floor.

About 15 minutes later, a fire commander requested more ambulances due to a woman and two children being injured during the fire.

Tens of thousands of dollars were raised for the family via a GoFundMe effort.

QAnon Conspiracy Theories, Arson Accusations

After a lengthy six-week investigation by the New Hampshire Fire Marshal’s Office, the tenor of the case changed from a mom and children victimized by fire to allegations Corliss entrapped her children inside a room and then set the house on fire.

The investigator spoke to Bean, who also worked as the town's road agent and was in the area moving snow when a witness walking near the home saw smoke coming the area. He drove the grader by the house 30 minutes before and reported no problems. But as he arrived later, he saw smoke and Corliss at a home window and called dispatch.

Editor's note: This post was derived from information supplied by the Merrimack County Superior Court and does not indicate a conviction. This link explains the removal request process for New Hampshire Patch police reports.

Bean entered the house through the kitchen door and encountered dogs but found no fire. When he went upstairs, though, there was “smoke and flames at the top of the stairs.” The heat was “too hot for him” without his fire gear on, the report stated.

Police arrived first, and they, along with the Bean, attempted to lift the grader and a step ladder to the second floor but could not reach Corliss. Webster and Concord firefighters arrived and posted ladders to the window while firefighters went into the house, attempting to rescue people from the home.

The first Webster firefighter, a captain wearing a helmet cam, was able to gain access to the second floor and encountered Corliss in a room. She was accused by the firefighter as well as police later of “acting in a manner that made them think she was in a mental health crisis” as well as being “combative with them,” the report stated. The helmet cam caught Corliss screaming, “Get the f--- away from me, I’ve had wormwood, you’ll all die,” the affidavit stated. The captain accused her of pushing him away when he tried to keep control of her.

Later, she was lowered by a ladder but was accused of grabbing onto the ladder and attempting to keep firefighters from taking her out of the home.

After being led to safety, Corliss was unstable, the report said. When one firefighter stated she was acting crazy, she heard the comment and yelled she was not crazy, the affidavit stated.

As firefighters posted ladders against the building, the children were found.

“(The girl) called out and reached for a Webster firefighter, who located and then, her brother, who was on the bed,” the affidavit stated.

A Boscawen police lieutenant carried Corliss to an ambulance, but she was accused of being combative with him, too. She hit the lieutenant in the face with her bloody hand and said he was now infected, the report said. The lieutenant accused Corliss of screaming about her body being “poisoned” and “you’ll die if you eat me,” as well as blaming her father for selling her into slavery, calling herself by other names, and admitting to trying to kill herself.

“At no time during the incident did Corliss tell anyone that the children were inside the room,” the investigator stated.

The investigator said EMTs spoke with the girl while she was taken to Concord Hospital. The girl told the EMT that her mom told her that “bad guys broke in” and “my mom set the fire to protect us,” according to the affidavit. At Concord Hospital, a doctor also heard a similar statement from the girl.

After petitioning for a criminal search warrant, the investigator searched the home and found the most significant damage in the floor area of the bedroom’s doorway.

“Fire had caused a mass loss of the wood floorboards resulting in a hole burned into the floor,” the investigator wrote. “It was apparent that the fire originated in that doorway area and that heat had filled the upper levels of the space — causing melting and a large amount of smoke.”

The fire trapped them in the room, the affidavit stated.

Both windows were also broken, and Corliss had lacerations on her arms. There were also bloodstains on the inside and outside of the windows.

The investigator also found a black grill-style lighter on the ground, identified as a Crocs click-and-flame lighter. It was not damaged by fire, the report said. As the investigator was removing debris from the doorway area, he found a cardboard package for a lighter of the same brand as the one found outside.

Investigators, however, could not find “any competent source of heat for ignition” in the doorway area. There were candles in the room and cigarette butts, but they were not near the door and could not have caused the fire, they concluded.

An accelerant detection K-9 unit was brought in to search the home, but it did not detect any flammable liquids. Investigators surmised a can of Goof Off solvent, which is ignitable, was found in the room and may have been involved with the fire in some way. In the report, investigators found plenty of materials that could have accelerated the fire — including paper, cardboard, clothing, and household items. Several candleholders were found, and an intact jar candle near a storage room in the hallway was not damaged by fire. The report said melted wax was found on the floor near the windows and on Corliss’ clothing, too.

There was no evidence of a forced entry.

The investigator said the helmet cam evidence led him to believe “Corliss had likely tried to barricade the upstairs,” including a bed headboard leaning across the top of the stairs and a snowboard leaning up against the front door.

During interviews, family members said Corliss had spoken about conspiracy theories and QAnon — including sex trafficking fears with children and “celebrities and politicians had been replaced with imposters.” She also feared coronavirus and discussed taking hydroxychloroquine and turpentine to fend off the virus.

A digital extraction of her cellphone found references to several “conspiracy theories, QAnon, the (2020) election, and videos of butchered human corpses,” the report stated.

In mid-March, during an interview at the Merrimack County Child Advocacy Center, the girl was too traumatized to speak about the incident. But other family members stated she had told them a similar accusation about Corliss while adding that she did not want to talk about how her mother set the fire, the report said. The boy was also interviewed a few days later. He mentioned that a candle started the fire but could not describe how, the report stated.

“He referred to a fire outside as being good and a fire inside the house being bad,” the affidavit said. “He described the location of the fire as being by or near his bed. His bed was about six feet or so from the doorway to the bedroom.”

In late March, the investigator spoke with a doctor at Mass. General Hospital and shared footage of the helmet cam with him. The doctor, the affidavit reported, claimed Corliss said the fire was started when a dog knocked over a candle. She tried to smother the fire with a blanket, but the blanket caught on fire, and she panicked.

On April 2, Corliss was transferred to Concord Hospital. On April 5, and April 9, the investigator requested to speak to Corliss. A social worker reported that she had nodded her head, “Yes,” and wrote, “It was an accident,” the report said.

In the affidavit, the investigator dissected Corliss’ claims about the fire and said her version of events and the facts “do not support it” — starting from the dogs, who were downstairs, to the fact that there was no candle or accelerant near the doorway and no blanket near the door either, the report said.

“Corliss’ claim about the fire starting by an accident does not explain why she did not call for help or attempt to get her and the children safely out of the building,” the report stated. “It appears that she broke the windows open but then did not try to get out … the open windows provided ventilation which would have allowed the fire to grow as well as allow for exhaust of smoke.”

The investigator said, if a candle was involved in the incident, “it is more reasonable to believe that Corliss lit the candle and then used it and/or the lighter to ignite something other than the candle in the doorway area.”

A day before the affidavit was filed, Corliss agreed to an interview and stated a dog had knocked over a burning candle and papers on her dresser, the report stated. She claimed to have screamed for help from the broken windows and did tell firefighters that her children were hiding under a bed, the report said. Corliss was accused of admitting to drinking turpentine, and when asked if she thought that poisoning herself had caused her to believe things that were not real, “she admitted that this was possible — but still claimed she did not remember setting the fire.”

On April 15, the affidavit was filed against Corliss and she was charged with arson and two counts of reckless conduct-domestic violence-deadly weapon, all felonies, as well as two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. She was arrested later by Webster police.

A second GoFundMe effort was set up in May 2021 to assist Alex McMillen, the father of Corliss’ daughter, Molly, in raising money for her medical bills. The effort raised more than $17,000 to assist the girl and McMillen, a Portsmouth police officer. The Somersworth Police Department NEPBA Union and the Portsmouth Police Relief Association also partnered with the family to help them raise money.

Corliss was indicted in July 2021 on arson, two reckless conduct with a deadly weapon-domestic violence, and two second-degree assault with a deadly weapon with serious bodily injury-domestic violence charges, all felonies.

Court Case Drags On … And On

The case was besieged for the next two years with motions to continue, motions to amend, canceled conferences, and bail hearings.

In December 2022, the Merrimack County Attorney’s Office issued a witness list of 37 people, including several people at the fire scene. Months later, Corliss’ attorney Mark Sisti filed a single witness.

The case was set to go to trial in February 2023, but another continuance was requested.

In March 2023, one of the arson charges was nolle prossed and another pretrial hearing was slated for April 2023. But that, too, was canceled.

In filings, the defense and prosecution began arguing over whether Corliss could advance a possible insanity defense.

Terri Harrington, an attorney for the county, argued against the defense in a filing in mid-April 2023, saying Corliss’ defense would “assert that she was laboring under a mental disease or defect at the time of the charged offenses” and would “attempt to elicit testimony on cross-examination of state’s witnesses regarding defendant’s mental health at the time of the offenses” and believed they should not be able to do so since it was not noticed.

Harrington also petitioned the court to allow comments by one of the children to an EMT and a doctor at Concord Hospital as an exception to the hearsay rule. In the filing, she wrote, “At some point during this exchange, Dr. (Elizabeth) Hoffman recalls that M. spontaneously told her that “the bad men broke into her home and cut the electricity, so my mom lit a fire to prevent the men from coming upstairs’.” Harrington said, the victim’s statements, “were directly pertinent to her condition as a newly arrived trauma patient” at the hospital.

A jury trial scheduled for May 22, 2023, was also canceled.

A status conference held in early June led to a ruling by Judge Brian Tucker to move things along.

“If the defendant intends to raise the defense of insanity,” a document stated, “she shall do so by filing a notice of insanity defense as soon as practicable.”

A notice of insanity defense was posted on Aug. 23, 2023, with a deadline of mid-to-late October 2023. That report was then pushed back late-November 2023 and pushed back again to late-March 2024.

Many court documents in the case involving competencies and motions were sealed.

The case continued to drag on for another year with motions, hearings, and conferences.

McMillen also filed civil actions in superior courts against Corliss and her family members’ homeowner insurance company to cover medical bills.

In February 2024, he filed a complaint in Merrimack County Superior Court for damages and demanded a jury trial. McMillen said Corliss’ “delusions and psychosis” had caused “severe and permanent scarring and disfigurement” to his daughter that would require “significant and painful” treatments and procedures.

A month later, McMillen withdrew the complaint after reaching a settlement to pay for medical care and transportation.

A plea and sentencing hearing, set for Nov. 1, 2024, was canceled, and three weeks later, an order from the office of the forensic examiner evaluation was issued.

One reason given for the delay was the prosecution and defense had not worked out what rights were going to be waived and the next steps. Time in the state psychiatric unit could be as long five years. Since Corliss was already on bail for several years, it was believed she likely wanted to work through the process. She could be released immediately on a conditional discharge and would be tracked, not unlike someone on probation with the corrections department.

In a filing on Dec. 17, 2024, Judge Dan St. Hilaire said the case had been pending for three and a half years and the forensic examiner’s report should have been completed but had not due to “strained resources.” In a Nov. 20, 2024, letter, the forensic examiner also said it could not provide an opinion of Corliss due to her lack of legal status, which would then have to be measured against her mental disorder and potential future acts committed.

St. Hilaire said, in the Corliss case, the county attorney’s office had “indicated an intention to accept” the insanity plea in February. He said the forensic examiner “appears to erroneously interpret” the law. St. Hilaire said, often, the plea, finding, and sentencing occurred during the same hearing and rejected the notion Corliss needed to spend up to 40 days in the state’s secure psychiatric unit before the plea. He said doctors had already reported on “her mental state during those actions” alleged in the indictments.

Pretrial services also reported in September 2024 that she had been under supervision for more than three years and “aside” from “diluted urine samples” during the early months of supervision, she had been “a model participant” in the program.

St. Hilaire then ordered the Office of Forensic Examiner to produce the report no later than Jan. 27.

The New Hampshire Department of Corrections requested a motion to extend the deadline and the county attorney’s office challenged the motion. The NH DOC then requested a motion to reconsider.

The dangerousness report was issued on Jan. 27, but plea and sentencing hearings for Feb. 3 and Feb. 12 were canceled.

The plea hearing on Monday is set for 1 p.m.

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