Detective: Fire victim, husband had marital problems

Hours after his wife and two daughters were killed in a house fire that he escaped, a sobbing Edit Vanegas admitted to a Nassau detective that he had been having marital problems, and had planned to move out of the family's home, the detective testified Monday.

But Det. Milton Aponte said on the stand that the North Lawrence father of four was open about his family's problems, and did not raise his suspicions.

"He was crying, at times uncontrollably," Aponte testified. "Every time I asked a question, although he was responsive, he was blubbering."

Aponte was one of two witnesses called by the defense Monday in the final day of testimony in volunteer firefighter Caleb Lacey's trial on charges that he set the fire that killed his neighbor and three of her children. Lacey's lawyer, Christopher Cassar of Huntington, said in his opening statement that police did not investigate Vanegas thoroughly enough as a possible suspect in the case.

Closing arguments in Lacey's arson and murder trial are scheduled for Tuesday morning, and jurors could begin deliberating as soon as Tuesday afternoon. If convicted, Lacey faces a maximum of 25 years to life in prison.

Earlier in the trial, Vanegas testified that he woke up on the morning of the Feb. 19, 2009 fire in a room so filled with smoke that he could not see his wife and two daughters.

He jumped out a window with two of his sons, and then, from a parking lot behind his home, listened to his daughters calling for him from the fire.

Cassar asked Aponte whether Vanegas said that he and his wife, Morena, 46, were involved in an ongoing case in Family Court. Aponte said yes.

Edit Vanegas has said previously that he and his wife had problems, but that any suggestion that he set the fire that killed her, his stepson, Saul Preza, 19, and their daughters, Andrea, 10 and Susanna, 9, is "pure lies."

The only other witness Cassar called in Lacey's defense was Lacey's father, Richard Lacey, who is a local pastor. The Rev. Lacey denied Det. Peter McGinn's previous testimony that Richard Lacey asked him to speak to his son after Lacey, then 19, claimed he had been inside the burning building and "stepped over the bodies" of the victims. Several firefighters testified that Lacey never entered the building to fight the fire.

But Richard Lacey said his son never told him he went into the burning building, and he, in turn, never said so to McGinn.

Richard Lacey said on the stand that he and his son never had a thorough discussion about the fire.

"He was crying, and I was crying, and there was no conversation," he testified. "There could be no conversation under those circumstances."