Conroe man accused of setting girlfriend on fire

Well, here's something you don't hear about very often — and thank goodness you don't: In Conroe, a woman has died after her boyfriend set her on fire during an argument.

It happened just after 11 p.m. Saturday when John Marshall Dodd, 41, got into a fight with his girlfriend, 44-year-old Terry Leigh Lee (or Terry Lee Bailey, according to KPRC and KHOU), at Lee's house. "Apparently they had been out for the evening, gotten home, and then got into an argument that escalated into a physical confrontation. At some point the suspect went into the garage and got a can of gasoline and set her on fire," Conroe police Sgt. Mike Tindall told the Chronicle. Lee, who had worked as a Child Protective Services caseworker for more than 20 years, suffered burns over 90 percent of her body. She was listed in critical and unstable condition at Memorial Hermann Hospital through Sunday, and she died late Sunday night.

An interesting aspect of this incident is how police found out about it: The Chronicle reports that the cops went to Lee's house in response to an automatic fire alarm and found her in the kitchen, severely burned. But according to KHOU, Dodd ran to a neighbor's house for help and claimed it had all been an accident: "We were just sitting out here hanging out, having a couple beers, then this guy storms across the yard saying to call 911, there had been an explosion in the kitchen," a neighbor told Channel 11. KPRC reports that Dodd admitted to dousing Lee with gasoline and setting her on fire, so we guess the explosion story didn't last too long.

Dodd — who KHOU says has a criminal record that includes sexual assault — is being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $250,000 bond. Friends said Dodd and Lee, a former CPS caseworker of the year, had been dating just a few months. "The same thing she spent her whole life doing, protecting people who were abused, and not just children but women, and for her to suffer the same herself," CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin told the Chronicle. "We see abuse and trauma every day, but when it happens to a member of your own circle it really hurts."