Trenton, NJ 04/12/09

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Trenton (MERCER)---

TRENTON POLICE DEPARTMENT PRESS RELEASE

The Trenton Police Department has released the following information concerning these recent incidents :

Date: Sunday, April 12, 2009

Time: Approx. 12:30 AM

ncident: Fatal Fire

Location: 11 Ogden Street

Victim: John Doe, possible male victim. No other description

Members of the Trenton Fire Department responded to 11 Ogden Street on a report of a smoke and fire condition. Fire Department personnel entered the vacant building to suppress the fire when they encountered the body of the victim on the first floor front room. The vacant building had been boarded secure and it is believed that the victim had entered the residence utilizing the fire escape at the front of the building to gain access to a second floor window where the plywood sheeting had been pulled back.

Detectives from the Trenton Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Bureau (Arson Unit/Homicide Unit) were on scene and were coordinating their investigation with the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, Trenton Fire Department and the Mercer County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Preliminary investigation reveals that the fire appears to have started on the first floor (front room) near an old sealed fireplace. The front door was sealed shut by a plywood sheet. The heavily charred remains of the victim were located near the fireplace.

Detectives are investigating to determine if the victim was a local transient/homeless person that had entered the vacant building for shelter from the cold weather and had started a fire to keep warm.

An autopsy will be performed by the Mercer County Medical Examiner’s Office and attempts will be made to identify the victim via fingerprints and/or dental records if they can be obtained due to the condition of the victim’s charred remains.

Trenton Police Detective Michael Terman (Homicide Unit) , Detective Quinton June (Trenton Police Arson Unit) and DetectiveGary Wasko (Mercer County Prosecutor’s Arson Unit) are investigating this incident. Anyone with information pertaining to this incident and/or the identification of the unidentified victim can call the Trenton Police Department at (609) 989-4170 or the Confidential Tip-Line at (609)989-3663.

Captain Joseph S. Juniak

Criminal Investigation Bureau Commander

TRENTON — A homeless person tucked inside an abandoned building on Ogden Street burned to death on Easter Sunday when the structure blew up in flames, firefighters and his associates said.

Trenton police Capt. Joe Juniak said the body was too charred yesterday to determine the gender of the person, but homeless people at the nearby Rescue Mission said the victim is a man who set the building on fire by sleeping with a lit cigarette.

“He was drunk and fell asleep with a cigarette,” said a Rescue Mission tenant who declined to give her name. “He unfortunately got burned up. He was a very nice guy; he didn’t bother anyone. He would always joke. He was a sweetheart.”

Associates said the victim is a middle-aged Rescue Mission tenant named Chris who was depressed over being homeless. The victim drank to console his fears that he was slated to be kicked out of the Rescue Mission house, according to homeless Trentonians who said they knew him.

The Ogden Street fire erupted minutes after midnight yesterday inside a building that has been vacant for years. Heavy smoke was coming from all three floors, and firefighters went inside and found a “badly charred” body, firefighters and police said.

Capt. Juniak said investigators suspect the victim was a homeless person and that an autopsy report is pending to determine an official cause of death.

If the man died as a result of the fire, he would be the city’s first civilian fire fatality of 2009. Rescue Mission tenants said the fire was an unfortunate incident that had nothing to do with foul play. Capt. Juniak said the incident didn’t appear suspicious.

Juniak called the incident “unfortunate,” saying Trenton, like scores of cities across the country, has situations where homeless people “break into vacant houses to stay warm. Unfortunately, the risks are high of something happening.”

The victim, according to Rescue Mission tenants, is a male of either Russian or Polish ethnicity whom his associates described as “a good, friendly guy who got along with everybody.”

The victim was said to be married to a woman who also frequents the Rescue Mission, according to his friends, who said the wife was “crying and everything; she’s hurt.”

Several Rescue Mission tenants said they fear the Easter Sunday fire is an omen and that more vacant Trenton buildings will get burned to the ground by homeless folks who have nowhere else to go. They said Trenton could avoid that problem by increasing its capacity to house the homeless.

Body found in abandoned city building