OCEAN CITY — A Worcester County Circuit Court jury wasted little time deliberating on Wednesday, returning guilty verdicts on all charges against a notorious resort area arsonist in last summer’s West Ocean City blaze.
Around 1:50 a.m. on June 22, 2021, the fire was reported on Harbor Road in West Ocean City adjacent to the commercial harbor. Fire companies from around the area responded to fight the blaze, which destroyed a home and a boathouse and damaged three other homes. Two firefighters were injured while battling the blaze.
Shortly after the fire, the Worcester County Fire Marshal’s Office concluded the cause was arson and an investigation was initiated. Last November, a warrant was issued for John Edward Cropper, 57, of West Ocean City, who was identified as the suspect and is well-known by many locals in the area for purposely setting fires over the last several decades.
A Worcester County grand jury indicted Cropper on two counts of first-degree arson, one count of second-degree arson, three counts of malicious destruction of property and two counts of reckless endangerment. Following a three-day jury trial in Worcester County Circuit Court this week, a trial presided over by Worcester County Circuit Court Judge Beau Oglesby, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts after deliberating for about an hour.
Worcester County Fire Marshal Matt Owens thanked the tireless efforts of internal and allied investigators that spent hundreds of hours bringing the case to trial including the Fire Marshal’s Office, the Worcester County Bureau of Investigation, the Maryland State Fire Marshal’s Office K-9 division, the Ocean City Police Department Forensic Investigation Unit and the Worcester County State’s Attorney’s Office, which all played a significant role in the successful adjudication in the case against Cropper. A pre-sentence investigation and psychological evaluation of Cropper was ordered before sentencing.
Cropper has a long history of arson in the Ocean City area dating back to 1986. In January 2011, Cropper was sentenced to 10 years with all but 18 months suspended for attempting to set fire to a brick office building at the old Cropper Concrete plant along the bay at 1st Street in March of that year. Cropper is well known to long-time residents of the resort area for his notorious arson spree in November and December of 1986 that included six major blazes, causing millions of dollars in damage and keeping an entire town on edge for several weeks.
Cropper was charged with arson for setting six fires in 1986 including the Ocean Village apartments on 78th Street on Nov. 5, 1986; a home at 77th Street on Nov. 7; a home at 73rd Street on Nov. 11; and a residence on 74th Street on Nov. 12. After setting four fires in seven days, Cropper’s spree inexplicably stopped for a month, leading investigators to believe it was over, but Cropper was at it again with a fire at the Four Winds apartments on Dec. 12, 1986 followed by another fire at a residence on 71st Street on Dec. 26.
Cropper, a 1983 graduate of Stephen Decatur, had been a fire cadet in high school and was a probationary member of the Ocean City Volunteer Fire Company for about a year when the arson spree began. Cropper was arrested in April 1987 after detectives had compiled enough evidence to charge him for at least six of the blazes in the resort during the time frame. In October 2007, Cropper pleaded guilty but not criminally responsible to setting five fires in Ocean City.
The plea was accepted based on a diagnosis state forensic psychiatrist that Cropper suffered from pyromania, a disorder characterized by an intense fascination with setting fires. Cropper was sent to the Clifton Perkins State Psychiatric Hospital in Jessup where he was supposed to remain indefinitely until such time as he was cured of the disorder and doctors were of the opinion he would no longer be a threat to himself or others.
