Fire Marshal Paul Simonian
Appearances
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
You learn not to just rush to a snap judgment because so many things could happen. You know, you don't know the players. You don't know what actually transpired in that bedroom, who did what, who said what. I said, you got gasoline up here. That doesn't belong up here. So something's wrong there. You have a boyfriend that ran out. They were both on fire. He didn't stay or try to help her.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
He ran out. How badly is he burned? This is way before we have any information about Frank, any threats he's made in the past or history with Elizabeth.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
In the room, all over the bed, on the floor. And some might have got on him, but there's fumes now in that room. That whole room is like a little bomb.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
When that ignition happens and you're surrounded in fire... It's immediate. It's like a flashover. Whatever he's wearing is on fire now, too.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
He didn't realize that that was going to flash on him. Gasoline is so volatile, and the fumes, it's the fumes that burn and flash, and then the gasoline just keeps fueling the fire and the fumes. That's what's burning, is the fumes, not the liquid.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
Elizabeth has gasoline on her, so that liquid gasoline is still producing fumes. So it's like a source. It just kept burning.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
10, 12 feet, he made it down the stairs, saw the brother with the commotion, said, go help your sister, and he ran out.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
So they get there, pitch black, the room's full of smoke, you see a little glow. on the floor, and they say, we have no fire on the first floor. We're in the second floor. We see some rubbish, maybe a pile of clothes burning in the center of the room.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
I remember when I finished testifying, I walked out, and as I walked out, Elizabeth's mother was in the back pew, and she reached over and grabbed my hand and just said, thank you.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
Shortly after, the lieutenant called back, said, no, it's not rubbish. We have a victim up here. We have a fatality.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
In route, I get to the fire scene. I go up to the incident command, ask him what's going on. He says there's some occupants there across the street at a neighbor's house, some brothers and a mom. I go, okay.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
No, I didn't feel any satisfaction that he was guilty because it's not a win-win anywhere. Elizabeth lost her life. Frank is physically, mentally damaged. His freedom's taken away from him. There was no satisfaction that he was found. I mean, he just had to be held accountable for what he did.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
Go in the front door. There's no visible fire at all down on the first floor. I go to the back of the house where the stairs are. I just start seeing some smoke smudge down the stairs and some fire debris. I meet the lieutenant up there. He takes me and shows me where Elizabeth is. She's in the back room of the house. There's some big aquariums on the side with some reptiles in it.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
There's fire damage in there, like ceiling heat damage and things like that. And our fire crews did their overhauling, which ripped down the ceilings and the walls and looking in the channels to make sure there's no more fire. And then we proceed to the front of the house. And there's a small little room on the left.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
There was a little girl's bed in there, like a Hello Kitty bed or something like that.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
And then I went in Elizabeth's bedroom, and you could see the mattress was burned pretty good on a third of it. Maybe it was a big mattress, maybe a king-size mattress. Burned into the box spring a little bit. There was some fire damage in there, more heat damage.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
The ceiling was down. Some of the walls were torn down. And I happened to just look, you know, I was just looking across the room, seeing what's going on. I look for candles. I'm looking for smoking, overloaded extension cords, anything like that. And I see a piece of drywall that's broken down and something's dripping on it, but it's leaving a sheen, like a rainbow sheen.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
There's a little juice bottle that's tipped over and it's dripping. And I take a smell of that and I notice it's gasoline. It smells like gasoline, like an accelerant. My flag goes up. I go, well, we probably have a crime scene here. I go back out with the lieutenant. I said, stop the overhauling. Don't rip anything else down anywhere. Don't touch Elizabeth.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
From her knees to her belly, you know, all in there, her groin, her thighs, all that area. Not her face or her upper body, so it was all right there.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
It's very disturbing because some of the area is red, some is black. It's just burned, burned like you burn food. But Elizabeth was burned in some areas to the bone. I could see her thigh.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
Then it kind of started really taking a twist that her boyfriend came over, some yelling going on back and forth.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
And the one brother said, He heard Frank come down the back stairs very fast, and he opened up his bedroom door, went into the kitchen, and he saw Frank on fire. And they were trying to put him out, and he told the brother, go upstairs, help your sister. And he ran out the back door.
Sword and Scale
Episode 289
Blood on fence posts and climbing over the fence. We see clothing. They find a burned jacket behind a bush. They're tracking this person in the snow, the blood trail in the snow, the clothing. climbing fences, broken picket fences. And then they get a call, the police get a call of somebody in a man's house around the corner.