The 13-year-old step-granddaughter of a Sprenger Avenue man who died in a fire early Friday at his house was charged with deliberately setting the blaze.
The girl, whose name was withheld because of her age, was taken into custody by Buffalo police homicide detectives just after 6:30 p.m. and charged with two counts of seconddegree murder and first-degree arson in the death of Vincent Fairfax, 43.
Firefighters arriving at 125 Sprenger shortly after 4:15 a.m. discovered the two-story home engulfed in flames. Neighbors said four people, including two children, were calling for help from the second-floor porch as flames shot out the windows of the house. They were rescued by firefighters.
Fairfax was pronounced dead at the scene.
“There was a trail of some kind of flammable liquid [the suspect] used on the first floor,” Deputy Fire Commissioner Patrick T. Lewis said.
Lewis said the liquid was apparently poured in the kitchen, outside a bedroom and dining room area. Investigators from the Buffalo Fire Marshal’s office and Buffalo Police Homicide Unit questioned children and other members of the family.
Sources close to the investigation said the suspect also doused an 11- year-old boy asleep in the house with the liquid, waking him up. She told him he’d better get out or he’d “burn with the rest of them,” said the source, who added that the suspect also led a girl with cerebral palsy out of the house before setting it on fire.
Investigators said the girl admitted to setting the fire. However, they refused to release any details about the girl’s motive.
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