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"Today was a very difficult time for me and my family," wrote one of the victims after Gary L’Heruex, 61, of Tenafly was sentenced in Superior Court in Hackensack. "We had to relieve that night where we almost lost our lives in that horrible fire.
"It took almost four years, but today, we got justice," she added. "Now we can finally start healing and those two precious people that passed can finally RIP."
Killed in the Aug. 18, 2016 fire at 119 Washington Avenue were 56-year-old Margaret Colon and her granddaughter, Maribella, 5, who'd only just registered for school in Little Ferry days earlier.
Borough Police Lt. Chris Boel was on routine patrol when he heard an explosion and saw fire around 11:30 a.m.
He arrived to the sounds of screams as people tried to escape the three-story, multi-family home on Washington Avenue, then immediately summoned help and rushed into the building with Officers Dominick Verdi and Angelo Ratto.
They had no fire equipment and weren't about to look for any.
A neighbor who lives across the street said she'd just gotten home, got out of her car and was putting the key in her door when she heard the explosion. She ran to a local fire station and activated the pull-box alarm.
Maribella's mother, Stephanie Colon, was critically injured with broken bones after she jumped from a third-floor window.
Also hospitalized was resident David Lucero, who suffered cracked ribs and a broken shoulder when he jumped out a second-floor window after shielding his wife and two daughters with wet towels and getting them to safety.
Maribella was "the last one taken out," then-Police Chief Ralph Verdi said. "They were doing CPR on her at the scene."
The 5-year-old succumbed to her injuries at Hackensack University Medical Center just before noon the next day. A short time later, her grandmother died at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston.
A joint investigation by the Bergen County Prosecutor's Arson Investigation Unit and Little Ferry police, with evidence collected by the Bergen County Sheriff's Bureau of Criminal Identification, determined that the cause of the fire was accidental.
The explosion and fire “were identified as originating in the garage area of the house, which was rented to a non-resident for the purpose of storing motorcycles,” then-Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal said.
Although the house was a three-story dwelling, L’Heureux “failed to make the necessary upgrades as required by state of New Jersey regulations, including failure to maintain or install hard-wired smoke detectors, failure to provide a secondary egress or fire escape, as well as failure to provide apartment doors on the second and third floors that were required to have self-closure devices,” the prosecutor said at the time.
L’Heruex, who was released on a summons, later pleaded guilty to a third-degree charge of violating the New Jersey fire code, causing Lucero and Stephanie Colon's injuries, in exchange for leniency at Friday's sentencing. Prosecutors dropped second-degree charges of causing the two deaths as part of the plea deal.
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ALSO SEE: Little Ferry Police Lt. Chris Boel was on routine patrol when he heard an explosion and saw fire around 11:30 a.m. He arrived to the sounds of screams as people tried to escape a three-story multi-family home on Washington Avenue. CLICK HERE....
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