A 61-year-old Marengo woman is facing two counts of arson after authorities say she deliberately set fire to two homes directly across the street from each other on Millstream Road on the same night in July, weeks before a court granted a stalking no-contact order requested by one of the alleged victims. Kristin Nice was arrested by McHenry County Sheriff's officers after several weeks of investigation, and she remains in custody pending trial after agreeing to give up her pretrial release in two other pending felony cases.
Marengo Fire & Rescue District officials responded to a fire call on the evening of July 13 on the 18000 block of Millstream Road in unincorporated Marengo, according to NBC 5 Chicago. Emergency personnel were first dispatched at 9:52 p.m. and arrived to find active flames on the rear deck of the primary residence before the fire burned upward into the home's attic, according to Shaw Local. One resident managed to extinguish most of the exterior fire before crews arrived, but the blaze still spread into the attic, leaving the first home uninhabitable.
Occupants of a neighboring home across the street reported a small fire on the exterior of their property that same night, per the NBC 5 Chicago report. No injuries were reported in either fire. A formal criminal complaint filed in McHenry County Circuit Court alleges Nice knowingly and intentionally started the fires on the northwest exterior portions of both residential structures, according to the Lake & McHenry County Scanner.
A Neighborhood Dispute That Turned Criminal
Court records list Nice's own registered address in close proximity to both fire-damaged homes, according to the Shaw Local report — a detail that points to a hyper-local dispute rather than a random act. Before her arson arrest, Nice was charged on July 28 with violating a stalking no-contact order, one that had been requested by a resident of one of the burned homes and approved by a judge on July 16, per the same account. That timeline means the protective order was granted three days after the fires occurred, not before them.
An arrest warrant for Nice was granted by a judge on August 6 following a joint investigation by the Marengo Fire & Rescue Districts, the McHenry County Sheriff's Office, and the Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal, the Lake & McHenry County Scanner reports. Nice was served with the warrant on August 12, months after the original fire call. State fire marshal investigators worked alongside local crews on scene as part of that multi-week probe.
Prosecutors Cite a Pattern of Escalating Conduct
McHenry County State's Attorney Randi Freese said the alleged fires put families, neighbors, and first responders at risk, and that the allegations combined with Nice's other pending felony cases demonstrated why prosecutors sought her detention. “When conduct escalates and threatens an entire neighborhood, we will act aggressively to protect this community,” Freese said, according to NBC 5 Chicago.
Nice was already facing two other pending felony cases stemming from alleged June incidents involving residential burglary and aggravated assault of a police officer, per the NBC 5 Chicago report. Residential burglary is classified as a Class 1 felony under Illinois law, carrying 4 to 15 years in prison — the same range residential arson carries under Section 20-1 of the Illinois Criminal Code, per the Illinois General Assembly. Nice agreed that clear and convincing evidence showed she posed a real and present threat to people and the community, and she agreed to revoke her pretrial release in both of those earlier cases rather than contest detention.
How Illinois' Bail Law Shapes These Cases
Under Illinois' Pretrial Fairness Act, prosecutors seeking to detain a defendant before trial must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the person poses a real and present threat to specific individuals or public safety. Nice's stipulation to that standard let her bypass a contested detention hearing altogether.
The approach mirrors how prosecutors in neighboring Lake County handled a separate arson case this summer. There, prosecutors filed detention petitions against three people charged with felony arson after an early-morning fire destroyed a Beach Park establishment in July, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of the Beach Park bar fire, citing public safety risks to firefighters and neighbors. McHenry County has also seen other cases where alleged offenses committed while a defendant was on pretrial release drew scrutiny — earlier this month, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for an aggravated kidnapping committed in unincorporated Marengo while he was out on pretrial release for a prior domestic battery charge.
Nice is scheduled to appear in court on September 4. All charges against her remain allegations at this stage, and she has not yet been convicted of any crime in either the arson case or her earlier pending felony matters.
