Man, 78, charged with murder, arson in fatal Virginia fire

Detectives in Northern Virginia say a man is accused of setting his neighbor’s home on fire and killing her, burning his own home down, and then filing an insurance claim.

On Oct. 24, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue responded to the Lowes Island area of Sterling, where a three-alarm fire claimed the life of a 36-year-old woman.

On Tuesday, her neighbor was arrested and charged with arson and murder.

Video shows fire tearing through townhomes. T​hree adjacent properties were damaged. The residents asked News4 not to share their names, but they shared their story. They said they woke up early last Friday morning, and the light pouring in from the window convinced them it was daytime.

But when they checked the clock, it was 1 a.m.

They looked out the window and saw their back porch fully engulfed in fire, burning with their neighbors’ homes. They rushed outside and heard their neighbor inside her home.

“She’s asking for help, and there’s nothing we could do,” one of the residents said.

After a couple of minutes of screaming, the voice went quiet, they said.

The Loudoun County Fire Department says 36-year-old Madelaine Akers was trapped inside her burning home and was killed.

“We saw lots of smoke coming out from that window. Lot of smoke coming out from that window, and within 3-4 minutes, we couldn’t hear her voice,” they said.

Akers lived in the townhome second from the end. The end unit was also a total loss.

After days of investigating, fire officials ruled out any possibility that the fire was accidental. After checking doorbell camera video and reviewing his car’s tracking data, the sheriff’s office arrested 78-year-old Jacob Bogatin.

He lived in the end unit, although neighbors said he and his wife appeared to move out of their home in the weeks and days leading up to the fire.

Fire investigators determined the flames started behind Akers’ unit, and they believe Bogatin intentionally started the fire.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by News4, the day after the fire, an insurance claim was filed for Bogatin’s home for more than double of what is owed on the residence that was recently foreclosed on.

Bogatin has been charged with arson and Akers’ murder.

Bogatin’s criminal case history shows a case involving federal indictments from 2003. The charges listed include RICO conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and SEC fraud.

In that 2003 federal case out of Pennsylvania, the federal government alleged Bogatin conspired with a few others to set up a fraudulent business and then allegedly take that fraudulent business public to line their own pockets by defrauding investors out of tens of millions of dollars, according to court records. Those records did not specify what the final result of that case was.

Bog​atin is in a Loudoun County jail awaiting a court hearing on the murder charge.