A Barre man who has gained notoriety as a frequent guest on the Howard Stern Show on satellite radio is accused of setting a fire — and telling a program staffer about it as he was doing it.
Mark Shaw Jr., 61, known on the show as “Bigfoot,” pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a felony charge of first-degree arson, reckless endangerment and providing false information to police in connection with a fire at a two-story apartment building on Fairview Street in Barre.
Shaw, who lived in a first-floor apartment in the building, and tenants in the two other units were able to make it safely out of the building in the fire Dec. 3, 2020, though one person trapped on the second floor had to be rescued by firefighters with a ladder.
Investigators say the first floor had significant damage, and the second floor had smoke and water damage throughout. Damage was estimated at $75,000.
James LaMonda, Shaw’s attorney, told Judge Mary Morrissey during the arraignment Wednesday that his client has a history of mental health illness and had been released earlier Wednesday from the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin.
“Being released today is what triggered the arrest warrant,” LaMonda said. Police took his client into custody on the fire-related charges soon after he was released from the hospital.
Shaw told the judge he had been at the hospital in Berlin since around Dec. 11, 2020, a little over a week after the fire.
Morrissey agreed to a request from Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault to set $25,000 cash bail for Shaw, who was taken to jail following the hearing.
“He’s effectively homeless,” Thibault said of Shaw. “It would be significantly dangerous if he were to be in a hotel or motel or other high-density housing situation without eyes-on supervision.”
Court filings showed that Shaw had repeated interactions with Barre police in the days and hours leading up to the fire. According to police, he told them that people were having sex in the building’s hallway, and a neighbor reporting to police that Shaw’s television volume was too loud.
It’s not clear when Shaw appeared on Stern’s SiriusXM satellite radio show, but clips from as recently as last summer and fall feature Shaw talking about his life, his roommates, and his conspiracy theories about Covid-19 while Stern and others laugh and mock him.
The series of recorded phone calls that helped lead to Shaw’s arrest started at about 7 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2020, when he spoke to a show writer and producer, Bob “Wolfie” Wolf, Barre Police Officer Amos Gaylord wrote in a sworn statement.
In those calls, Shaw told Wolf he was having a barbecue inside his apartment and wanted to harm himself. During one of the recorded calls, court filings stated, sirens could be heard in the background, as other sounds indicated officers had arrived.
In a later call, at 11:30 that night, Shaw told Wolf that he had started the fire and lied to police about it. Shaw, who had been burned out of his apartment that evening, told Wolf that he survived the fire and was staying at a motel.
“Did the whole building go up in flames?” Wolf asked Shaw at one point.
“Pretty much so, yes,” Shaw replied, “its windows busted outta the place and everything else — it even affected upstairs in the second apartment, it did.”
Barre police say they received a call on Dec. 3, 2020, at about 7:20 p.m. for a fire reported in Shaw’s apartment in the building, and a fire alarm could be heard in the background.
An officer who rushed to the house saw smoke pouring out of Shaw’s front apartment window, which had an air conditioner in it. When Shaw came to the door, smoke poured out his door and into the hallway, police said.
Shaw told police he didn’t know what had started the fire and told them to come in and find out what was going on. Police said Shaw had refused to leave the apartment before officers cleared everyone out of the building.
Police said Shaw kept trying to go back into his apartment. He told them he had dropped a candle and hit a broom, and both the broom and a table had caught fire. In addition, police said, Shaw told them he wanted to kill himself in the smoke.
A few days later, on Dec. 7, 2020, police got a call from a security staffer at Sirius XM radio, reporting that Shaw had spoken with Wolf on the evening of the fire.
A transcript of those recorded calls revealed that Shaw had told Wolf he had tried to burn his apartment house down and had lied to police about how the fire started.
In 2013, Shaw, then living in Newport, was found incompetent to stand trial after he was charged with several counts, including assault and attempted arson, according to a report from that time in the Caledonian Record.
The charges involved an alleged threat by Shaw to burn down the apartment building where he was living, the newspaper reported, and an officer used a Taser on him before he was taken into custody.
