Daniel Ignacio, the man accused of setting the fire that killed five Guatemalans in Brooklyn last week, continues to spew about the devil and the evil spirits that prompted the act, from the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital. "It must have been the Devil. It could not have been Jesus Christ," he said "I know I have to face a living hell now and God's judgment later." Still, since allegedly telling cops he lit the fire with a cigarette lighter, he’s changed his story—now he insists it was all an accident, caused by six plus bottles of vodka. And Satan, of course.
Ignacio—who called the cop’s account of what happened “exaggerated”—says he’d been drinking heavily and having dark thoughts the day before the fire. He was smoking a cigarette and absent-mindedly tossed it on a pile of carpets at the Bensonhurst building’s entrance, proceeding upstairs to sleep off his drunk. He doesn’t make any mention at all of the baby carriage, a memorable detail from the account police claim he gave last week. (They say Ignacio used paint thinner to soak a roll of toilet paper and then sparked it in a stroller standing near the door.) Paint thinner, however, does appear in the new version of the story: Ignacio says he combined it with his vodka to try to kill himself, though he can’t remember if he actually drank it, reports the Daily News.
Ignacio says he and three friends (one of whom died in the fire) drank six quarter liters of vodka the day before the fire, and later he drank two more on his own. Still, though he’s not taking full responsibility Ignacio says he “deserves to be punished.” He’s charged with five counts of murder—victims included a mom who threw her two babies from a window—and arson.
