A 64-year-old man faces attempted-murder and arson charges after investigators said a July 21 house fire was intentionally set.

GLEN BURNIE, Md. — A cellphone recording made during a domestic confrontation is part of the evidence cited against a Glen Burnie man accused of threatening his girlfriend and then setting fire to a home while she and pets were still inside, according to charging documents described by local news outlets.

Carmelo Latorre, 64, was arrested July 25, four days after firefighters responded to the 1200 block of Aster Drive. The Anne Arundel County Fire Department said crews arrived at about 10:29 p.m. July 21 and quickly extinguished the fire. After investigating the origin and cause, the department’s Fire/Arson & Explosives Investigative Bureau said the blaze had been intentionally set. Officials announced charges of attempted first- and second-degree murder and first- and second-degree arson. Local reports citing charging documents listed additional counts, including assault, reckless endangerment, a threat of arson and malicious burning.

The charging-document account places the recorded argument at the center of the case. Latorre’s girlfriend, whose name was redacted from the documents cited by WMAR and was not released by authorities, told investigators that he came home intoxicated on the night of the fire and began breaking things in the house. She alleged that he threw dog feces at her, made repeated threats and said he would force her to eat her deceased son’s ashes. Those claims come from the woman’s account to investigators and have not been established at trial. Authorities have not publicly released the full recording or the complete charging papers through the sources reviewed for this report.

The woman recorded part of the confrontation on her cellphone, according to the reports. Investigators said the recording captured Latorre threatening to burn the house and kill her. One reported statement was, “You’re going to die in this house.” WMAR separately reported that the video included a threat to burn the house to the ground. The recording matters because it is described as contemporaneous evidence of what was said before the fire, rather than an account reconstructed only after firefighters arrived. The publicly available reports do not say how long the recording runs, whether it captured the start of the argument or whether investigators recovered additional video or audio from the property.

Charging documents described by WMAR and CBS Baltimore allege that the confrontation moved from threats to a fire in the kitchen. Latorre is accused of placing combustible material on or near the stove and using the stove to start the blaze before leaving the house. CBS reported that the woman and pets were still inside. WMAR reported that the woman has limited mobility, a detail that adds to investigators’ allegation that she faced serious danger once the fire began. The woman called 911 and got out of the home. The reports did not identify injuries to her, and the county fire department’s public statement did not announce any deaths or injuries.

The official timeline is narrower and more precise than some early retellings of the case. Anne Arundel County’s fire department says the fire occurred July 21 and that firefighters were dispatched at about 10:29 p.m. Its release says Latorre was arrested Saturday, July 25. That timeline is consistent with local reports from CBS Baltimore, WMAR and WBAL, which described a Tuesday-night fire followed by an arrest several days later. A Law&Crime report initially gave a different response time in one passage, but the county’s own release provides the 10:29 p.m. time. The county statement does not describe the argument, the alleged threats or the method investigators believe was used to ignite the fire. It also does not identify the woman, which is consistent with the more limited level of personal detail in the agency’s public release. For those parts of the narrative, the available reporting relies on the charging documents rather than the fire department’s announcement.

Those more detailed allegations come from charging documents cited by the local television stations. The distinction is important because the fire department publicly confirmed only part of the case: the date and location of the fire, the approximate response time, the finding that the fire was intentionally set, Latorre’s arrest and the core attempted-murder and arson charges. The allegations about intoxication, damaged property, dog feces, the deceased son’s ashes, the cellphone recording and the kitchen stove were reported from court papers. Latorre is accused of the offenses and has not been convicted. The available reports do not include a response from a defense lawyer to the allegations. They also do not say whether Latorre has challenged the reported contents of the cellphone video, the woman’s account or investigators’ determination about the fire’s origin. Those are unresolved points in the public record and should not be treated as settled merely because they appear in charging papers.

The fire also drew concern from at least one neighbor about how much farther the danger could have spread. CBS Baltimore interviewed a neighbor identified as Bienvenue, who said he saw flames coming from the roof when emergency crews responded. He told the station he was relieved the woman escaped and said he worried that nearby homes could also have caught fire. The county fire department said crews quickly extinguished the blaze, but its public release did not provide a dollar estimate for the damage, a description of how much of the house burned or a count of neighboring properties that were threatened. It also did not say whether any pets were injured. That leaves the public account focused less on the scale of property loss than on the alleged danger to the people and animals inside and on investigators’ determination that the blaze was deliberately set.

The agency that investigated the fire is part of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department’s Office of the Fire Marshal. The county notes that its Fire/Arson & Explosives investigators are sworn law-enforcement officers who are specially trained to determine the origin and cause of fires. In this case, the bureau said its investigation led to the conclusion that Latorre intentionally set the Aster Drive fire and to his arrest. That official finding concerns how the fire began; the attempted-murder and other criminal allegations will be addressed through the court process. The county described the investigation as active and asked people with relevant information to contact its investigators.

Early reports also differed in how they described Latorre’s custody and the next procedural step. CBS Baltimore and WMAR reported in late July that he was being held without bond. Law&Crime reported that a court date had been set for Aug. 18. The sources reviewed for this report do not establish what occurred at that proceeding or whether Latorre’s custody status later changed. No plea, indictment, trial date or disposition after the initial arrest was confirmed in the publicly available material reviewed here, and none is inferred from the charges themselves.

Currently, the case rests publicly on two layers of information: the fire department’s finding that the July 21 blaze was intentionally set and the charging-document allegations describing the confrontation that preceded it. Latorre faces serious charges, but the allegations remain unproven unless established in court. As of the latest official fire-department statement available for this report, the investigation remained active; authorities had not released additional findings explaining whether more charges, evidence or court developments would follow.

Author note: Last updated August 29, 2026.