Fireplace skilled’s report reveals the place lethal San Marcos arson hearth began; pretrial testimony reveals accelerant was used

More than three years after the catastrophe, the identity and motive of the arsonist remain a mystery. Attorneys for the defendants have tried to implicate a Medina County man in the crime. But the plaintiffs’ attorneys say there’s no evidence he played any role in the fire and that the defendants are just trying to create a distraction.

The trial will begin in Austin on Nov. 3 before state District Judge Jan Soifer. The proceedings will be held online and broadcast on the court’s YouTube channel because of health risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected to last four weeks.

The catastrophe killed Dru Estes, 20, of San Antonio; Belinda Moats, 21, of Big Wells; James Phillip Miranda, 23, of Mount Pleasant; Haley Michele Frizzell, 19, of San Angelo; and David Angel Ortiz, 21, of Pasadena. All their deaths were ruled homicides.

One survivor, Zachary Sutterfield, now 23, of San Angelo, suffered third-degree burns to nearly 70 percent of his body and a traumatic brain injury during his escape.

The alleged use of an accelerant surfaced in sworn testimony from William M. Bennett, a real estate investor who manages San Marcos Green Investors, a partnership that owns the Iconic Village Apartments.

“My understanding of why the fire spread quickly was that … there was accelerant placed on it, and it was hot, dry and windy,” Bennett said under oath during a deposition in January.

Bennett testified that he learned these details by talking to the “fire people” while he was at the apartments after the disaster and by reading “the reports.”

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No other records made public so far support Bennett’s assertion that an accelerant was used.

Bennett gave a blunt answer when pressed as to what those suing should be told about the apartments’ safety.

“You can tell them that an arsonist showed up in the middle of the night and killed their children,” he responded. “We had a hundred-percent compliant property. … There is just no way to know what more we could have done to foresee crime or deal with a fire with accelerants. … I don’t know what I could have done differently to have prevented this or improved the outcome.”

Bennett was recently dismissed from the case as an individual defendant. Seven individuals and businesses remain as defendants. They include San Marcos Green Investors; Elevate Multifamily, a property management firm; a leasing manager for the apartments; and a roofing company. A few other defendants reached settlements with the plaintiffs.

The parents of one of those killed in the fire — Miranda — are plaintiffs in the current lawsuit. The families of the four other people killed settled their suits against the apartment complex’s owner and managers. Two of those families joined the Sutterfields in filing a separate fire-related suit last year against different defendants.

While the civil litigation grinds on, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives expressed confidence that the criminal case will be solved.

“We are optimistic that the person(s) responsible for this crime will be brought to justice,” ATF Senior Special Agent Nicole Strong said in a recent statement. “ATF continues to investigate every lead. … Our dedication to bringing justice to the victims remains unwavering.”

‘Persons of interest’

The Iconic Village complex at 222 Ramsay St. consisted of six separate low-rise buildings. An expert for the plaintiffs maintains that the design of Building 500, where the five deaths occurred, contributed to the devastation, according to court documents recently made public.

Flames spread swiftly through that building, which contained 28 apartments, partly because a pitched metal roof built on top of the pre-existing shingle roof the year before created an attic-type space that lacked fire partitions or compartments.

That open space allowed the fire to become more intense, according to a report by Ofodike Ezekoye, a fire scientist and professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

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“The biggest contributor to the rapid fire growth was the lack of draftstopping in the attic space,” Ezekoye wrote in a March 25 report for the plaintiffs.

“Draftstopping limits the amount of oxygen available to the fire in a given compartment. … Had draftstopping been installed in the attic space, it is likely that the fire growth would have been contained and allowed more time” for residents to get out, he wrote.

“Because the metal (roof) was constrained by fasteners, it is likely that the warping around these fasteners introduced openings allowing fresh oxygen to enter the attic space more freely, thus increasing the fire’s heat release rate,” Ezekoye added.

Ezekoye’s findings are among the experts’ reports prepared for the plaintiffs. They show only one side of the legal fight and will be challenged by the defendants, who hired their own experts to investigate the fire. The defense experts’ full reports haven’t yet been publicly disclosed.

The fatal fire started at the southeast quadrant of the victims’ building — an area near an alleyway and another apartment building where the flames eventually spread, according to a report by Michael Chaney, a Houston-area fire expert for the plaintiffs.

Chaney has investigated the origin and cause of over 3,000 fires since 1975. His firm specializes in investigating fatal fires.

Chaney visited the victims’ building twice before it was demolished. His March 22 report noted the apartments in the southeastern corner had been completely consumed by fire, while the doorway framing elsewhere in the building was still standing or somewhat intact.

But the exact location where the fire was set remains undisclosed because criminal investigators couldn’t share their findings, Chaney said.

“The cause of the fire was investigated by the ATF and local fire officials and was found to be ‘incendiary,’ i.e., a fire set by human hand, on purpose, when there should not have been a fire,” Chaney wrote. “Their investigation is criminal in nature and they cannot release the details until the matter is settled.”

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The report reveals that a woman in a nearby apartment building on the same property reported seeing “a glow” around 4 a.m. the morning of the fire — nearly 30 minutes before the first report of trouble — and called her boyfriend. The report says she “was told not to worry about it.” It doesn’t say by whom.

When the glow became larger, she called 911 at 4:27 a.m., Chaney wrote. By that point, flames were sweeping through a building full of sleeping tenants.

Chaney’s report also asserts that criminal investigators had developed “two good suspects” in the case as of last year. His report mentions a “domestic dispute” that occurred on the day of the fire at the same building where the victims lived, but it provides no details.

San Marcos Fire Chief Les Stephens said investigators have “persons of interest” in the case, but he declined to confirm or deny whether they have identified any suspects.

Stephens and the city’s former fire marshal, Kelly Kistner, declined to comment on Chaney’s report because the criminal investigation is ongoing.

The ATF wouldn’t comment on Chaney’s report or Bennett’s claims of an accelerant.

‘Drug through the mud’

The Medina County man whom the defendants have tried to implicate in the fire is Ryon Wayne Castro. He is the former boyfriend of a woman seriously injured while escaping the blaze.

Castro, 32, a Natalia-area resident, became ensnared in the legal fight last year after the judge allowed the defendants to name him a “responsible third party” in the lawsuit. An unidentified “John Doe” was also added to the lawsuit with the same designation. A jury could consider whether either of them bear any responsibility for the disaster.

This strategy is commonly known in legal circles as the “empty chair defense” — pointing at someone else to reduce potential liability.

In court filings, the defendants’ attorneys accused Castro and John Doe of “intentionally, maliciously or negligently” causing the fire. The filings included no evidence to support the accusation, but at a court hearing later, defense lawyers argued that Castro’s former girlfriend, Beth Conboy, told others she suspected him of setting the fire.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, in a motion last week to remove Castro from the case, accused the defense of misleading the judge about Conboy’s testimony.

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Conboy, 23, leaped from her second-story bedroom window to escape the flames, suffering fractures to her vertebra, foot and ankle when she hit the ground. She is among the plaintiffs suing the apartments’ owner, managers and other companies.

Now living in the Boston area, Conboy, a singer, testified during a deposition last year that she doesn’t believe Castro had anything to do with the fire, and she denied ever telling anyone that she suspected him.

In asking the court to remove Castro from the case, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued there is no admissible evidence to support the defendants’ accusations against him.

The motion filed last week contends that Castro is a victim of “mere speculation.”

“Castro explicitly testified, under oath, he did not start the subject fire, and that he has no knowledge or involvement with anyone who may have started said fire,” Houston attorney Kyle Findley wrote.

Castro has denied setting the fire and has never been arrested or charged in the case.

Investigators said last year they weren’t focused on Castro. They noted that he had cooperated with their investigation and had spoken with them multiple times. They have declined to comment further.

During an April 7 deposition, Castro said he handed over his cell phone so law enforcement officials could download all of its contents.

Part of his sworn testimony was made public last week when it was attached to the plaintiffs’ motion to strike him from the lawsuit.

“I feel like I’m being unjustly scrutinized and vilified,” Castro said during his deposition. “I would say it’s pretty akin to being drug through the mud.”

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Castro said talk that he was involved in the fire originated with Keegan McCalley, who lived in the building where the blaze began. Castro said McCalley, 25, an artist, had expressed to several people a “suspicion” that Castro was responsible.

McCalley, who lived in the same apartment as Miranda, one of the people killed, admitted during his own deposition May 12 that he had no evidence to implicate Castro. McCalley’s entire deposition was attached to one of the plaintiffs’ filings in the case.

He testified that when the blaze occurred, he was at work as an overnight cook at a 24-hour San Marcos restaurant and bar, the Buzz Mill. He learned of the fire when someone texted him, he said.

McCalley, who now lives in Austin, declined to speak to the San Antonio Express-News.

He confirmed during his deposition that the property managers delivered what he called an “eviction notice” to him the day before the fatal fire.

McCalley also said he’d allowed a friend to sleep in the apartment’s living room for two or three months. That friend was at the apartment when the fire erupted and desperately tried to awaken Miranda, without success, McCalley said.

“He tried to open the windows to let the cats get out, and as he did that, obviously the smoke started pouring into the apartment,” McCalley testified, recalling his friend’s description of the incident. “And he went to go knock on James’ (bedroom) door. It was locked. He, like, knocked and banged a whole bunch and screamed his name a whole bunch … (James) didn’t wake up or something, and the smoke got too thick and (the friend) went and jumped out my window.”

On ExpressNews.com: A fire killed his friends — a leap saved his life. Zachary Sutterfield wonders why he was the lucky one

‘Could have been prevented’

Chaney’s report mentions that he found safety deficiencies at the apartments, which the defense is expected to challenge.

“One thing is patently clear: this was an unsafe occupancy and the fire resulted in five fatalities and several injuries, which could have been prevented had the apartment complex employed various methods of fire safety, primarily relating to design, safety features and construction deficiencies,” Chaney wrote.

The apartments were built in 1970 and weren’t required to be retrofitted with fire sprinklers unless the property underwent significant renovations, according to San Marcos’ fire code at the time of the incident.

Since then, the city’s fire code has been changed to require sprinklers in any older apartment buildings that experience a fire displacing one or more residents.

Some tenants said their smoke detectors were silent or sounded well after the fire started. Experts for the defendants are expected to dispute the plaintiffs’ claims about smoke detectors, the apartments’ compliance with applicable building codes and how the complex was managed, among other subjects, court records show.

After the deaths, Iconic Village placed fire extinguishers in every apartment unit. The complex also installed firebreaks in the rafters of several remaining buildings to help slow the spread of flames.

San Antonio residents Cheryl and Troy Estes, whose son, Dru, died in the fire, are hopeful the civil trial might bring some answers and more attention to the unsolved crime.

“I blame the person who set that fire, OK?” Cheryl Estes said tearfully Friday night. “I want to know who set that fire.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio parents struggle with grief after son’s death in Iconic Village arson fire

“I need closure. It’s been three and a half years. I need to be able to put it to rest,” she said between sobs. “We still don’t know who murdered our child. We need to know who murdered our child.”

A $110,000 reward is still being offered for information leading to the identification or arrest of the person who ignited the blaze. Investigators urge anyone with information on the crime to call 1-888-ATF-TIPS or to email ATFTips@atf.gov.

pohare@express-news.net | Twitter: Peggy_OHare