CINCINNATI, Ohio -- Each winter for 18 years, Cincinnati police Lt. Paul Neudigate has remembered the Jan. 26 night when he responded to a house fire that killed five children.
This year, he also plans to mark another date - July 13 - the day the man who set the fire is to be executed.
William Garner, 37, is accused of setting the fire to hide his fingerprints after breaking into the home using a key from a purse he stole at nearby University Hospital. Addie Mack had gone to the hospital after hurting her wrist.
Her three daughters, their cousin and a neighbor boy died in the fire. Their ages ranged from 8 to 12 and "they all just seemed like small little babies," Neudigate said.
Neudigate said he remembers the bodes laying on the frozen ground and having to set a dead girl in the cold grass because there was no room in an ambulance.
"You still hope for a miracle. That miracle never came. It was an overwhelming sense of loss and chaos," he said.
He says he's thinking about attending the execution, because he needs closure, and for the children.
"Somebody," he said, "needs to see it through to the end for those five kids."
Now a vice squad lieutenant, Neudigate had about none or 10 months working the street when the fire hit. It was two days before his 23rd birthday.
"It was a cold night, with minimal activity," he said when he and his partner were called to Knob Court for a domestic disturbance call.
Neudigate remembers seeing the then-19-year-old Garner walk from one of the townhouses to a cab parked out front, carrying a VCR.
He and his partner returned a short time later to respond to a fire at the home where Neudigate had seen Garner.
"It was totally engulfed," said Neudigate. "Flames were shooting out the first floor windows. Flames were in the windows on the second floor."
His partner found a survivor, a 13-year-old boy who had jumped from the second floor after trying to rescue the others and seeing fire swallow the 11-year-old boy he thought of as his best friend.
Garner was arrested seven hours later.
He had stolen Mack's purse when she was at the hospital and lied to a cabbie that he needed to retrieve things from the home because he had broken up with a girlfriend.
He stole a TV, a VCR, a radio, two phones and some smoke detectors.
Garner knew six children were asleep upstairs, and had given one girl a glass of water.
"He felt they would smell the smoke and wake up," Neudigate said.
For additional information, stay with NBC 4 and refresh nbc4i.com -- Where Accuracy Matters.
To submit a story idea or news tip, e-mail stories@nbc4i.com.
MORE: NBC 4 Local News | Local Crime News
NBC 4 SPORTS: Sports News, Video
NBC 4 POLITICS: Headlines, Interactives & Video
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement