Fire victims' kin visit graves on day verdict is announced
Yolanda Turcios is comforted by family as they visit the graves of Morena Vanegas, Vanegas' daughters, Andrea and Susanna and son Saul Preza in Uniondale on the one-year anniversary of their death. (Feb. 19, 2010) Credit: Howard Schnapp
While a jury is deliberating the fate of the volunteer firefighter charged with setting the blaze that killed his wife and their three children, Edit Vanegas visited their graves at Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale Friday - to mark the one-year anniversary of their deaths.
BREAKING NEWS: Guilty verdict announced.
Balloons, including cheerful Dora the Explorer balloons for the little girls, and bouquets of fresh flowers, were added to a pile of dead ones buried under the deep snow on the unmarked grave sites.
Flanked by family members, Vanegas said he wanted justice delivered on this most symbolic day.
"I can't handle this," he said through tears. "This is very hard for me."
Caleb Lacey, 20, the Lawrence man on trial for setting the blaze, is waiting for a jury in Mineola to decide whether he's guilty of arson and murder.
Jurors, who have been deliberating since Feb. 9, are back at work Friday.
A year ago on this day, fire ripped through the two-story building in Lawrence, killing Morena Vanegas, 46, her son Saul Preza, 19, and daughters Andrea, 10, and Susanna, 9.
The front staircase - the only exit from the second floor - was ablaze, and Edit Vanegas and two sons leaped from the windows and survived.
Prosecutors said Lacey, the son of a local preacher, used gasoline to douse the front staircase and set it on fire, and then drove to his job as a probationary volunteer firefighter at the local firehouse to wait for a call to action.
Vanegas and several of his in-laws gathered Friday morning to mark the anniversary before heading to Nassau County Court in Mineola to await the verdict.
As family members stood around the grave sites holding hands, Edit Vanegas' mother-in-law whispered a prayer and wept.
"It's very painful. It's been a year but it seems like it happened yesterday for us," said America Chavez, sister of Morena Vanegas.
"The pain will stay with us for a long time," she said.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
