Daniel Ignacio has confessed to setting the fire that killed five of his roommates and fellow Guatemalan immigrants in Bensonhurst. He said that he was drunk and fell prey to “demons or devils”—a “satanic fire-slay bust,” per the Post.
Ignacio had helped rescue several of the building’s residents, making his confession all the more bewildering to survivors. But he has a history of confusing behavior at crime scenes, according to the Daily News. In 2002, he was arrested for burglary:
He was caught in a nearby building on 18th Ave. after stealing a purse, a comb and a pen from a young couple’s apartment, Browne said.
The landlady of the building yesterday remembered the incident.
“First he robbed, then he ate,” Maria Lombardo, 69, said.
The couple who lived in the apartment “had food on the stove, and when the cops came, we found him sitting there at the kitchen table eating leftovers. I said, ‘Son of a gun, what right do you have to be here?’ He was drunk and mumbling. It was 2:30 in the morning.”
