[UPDATE BELOW] Police are questioning a resident of the Bensonhurst building that burned this weekend killing five Guatemalan immigrants, the AP reports. So far it's unclear whether the suspect in custody is the same captured in video footage released earlier today. Wearing dark clothes, he's shown arriving at the overcrowded building around 2 a.m. with a bag, and rushing from its door at 2:29 a.m. without the bag. Just one minute later someone reported the fire, which killed four men and the mother who tossed her two children from a third-story window.
Considering the surveillance footage and how the building ignited, the NYPD is investigating the fire, one of the most deadly in the borough's recent history, as a case of arson. The force didn't specify whether the man caught on tape was the culprit, but an official did say the fire was motivated by a "personal vendetta." Yesterday media speculated the arsonist may have been a spurned lover who was owed money by one of the apartment's tenants.
The Post says police are having difficulty getting the building's residents to come forward as witnesses, although they've promised that legal status won't come into question. In 2008 there were 12,000 Guatemalans living in Brooklyn (although it's hard to get an accurate count since many live quietly, hiding from the law), reported the NY Times. “They come here seeking a better life for their families in Guatemala,” said Maria Luz de Zyriek, an official at the Guatemalan consulate . “That’s the main reason they’re here.” This week the community scraped money together to send the victims' remains back to their home country, where three sisters mourn the death of their husbands.
The investigation into whether the owner (who was cited for violations in a building next-door) illegally subdivided apartments in the burned building continues. "Someone tried to kill all of us," Marcelino Ajpacaj, 33, who lived on the second floor, told the Daily News. "We don't know who or why."
UPDATE: It seems that the third-floor resident who's now admitted to setting the fire didn't have a personal vendetta. But he was drunk and "prompted by demons." "I'm no monster. I have compassion," yelled the cuffed suspect Daniel Ignacio, who said he used paint thinner to light a roll of toilet paper on fire in a baby carriage. According to the NY Times, he said he heard demonic voices that told him to do it. Then, as the blaze got going, he went upstairs and took a nap, reports the NY Post. Eventually he went outside, and as he saw the building burn to the ground, Ignacio felt pangs of remorse and even helped rescue one of the kids who'd been thrown from the window. He's charged with arson and five counts of murder.
