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Day 3 of Exford Trial Focused on Fire and Resulting
Fire Investigation
Published: March 09, 2022 at
09:30 p.m.
By: Nick Altmire
NYS Fire Investigator Edward Stevens walked the jury
through hundreds of photos and diagrams
during Day 3 of the Shawn Exford trial
Lowville, NY- The Shawn L. Exford trial moved into day 3 today, with the
prosecution spending the day focusing on the fire that destroyed the
apartment house located at 7525 South State Street in the village of
Lowville on November 30, 2019, that resulted in the deaths of Catherine Crego and Saratina Kilbourne.
Testimony in the
case resumed just after 9 a.m. with the prosecution calling Joseph Austin
as the first witness of the day. Mr. Austin, currently chief of the entirely
volunteer Lowville Fire Department- a position he held the night of the fatal
fire, testified that his department was on a call on Church Street in the
village for a carbon monoxide alarm when he received the dispatch for the
fire at 7525 South State Street at 11:45 p.m. He stated that himself, two
assistant chiefs, and the two firefighters at the Church Street scene
immediately responded to the call with the engine at the Church Street
scene. He testified that they arrived on scene with this initial response
within 2 minutes of receiving the first fire dispatch.
Mr. Austin said
when they first arrived on scene they noticed a
person standing on the front porch roof, with the initial crew immediately
grabbing the ladder from the engine so the person could escape while Mr.
Austin ran around to the back of the building to do a quick sweep of the
back apartments. He noted that he entered the back upstairs apartment to
make sure everyone was out and to see if there was any way he could gain
access to the front upstairs apartment. He testified that there was no fire
in the back apartment at this time, although there was a
”light haze.”
Mr. Austin then
went on to explain the fire department’s method for suppressing the fire,
noting that due to the intensity of the fire they were unable to safely get
firefighters inside to make an interior attack on the front of the building,
with fire coming out from the second-floor window and first-floor entrance
door.
Under cross-examination
from defense attorney John Hallett, Mr. Austin said that within 4 to 6
minutes of the fire dispatch there were an additional 20 to 30 members of
his department arriving on the scene. When asked by Mr. Hallett, the fire
chief stated that without entering the building he was unable to tell where
or how the fire started.
“We weren’t
looking for a cause and origin,” Mr. Austin said. “Our goal was to contain
the fire and make sure the building was still standing.”
Mr. Austin’s
testimony concluded around 9:20 a.m.
The next witness,
NYS Fire Investigator Edward J. Stevens, immediately took the stand
following Mr. Austin’s testimony. Mr. Stevens, assigned to investigate the
cause and origin of the fire, spent the remainder of the day methodically
walking the jury through each step of the fire investigation, with the aid
of hundreds of photos from the scene introduced into evidence, and will
continue his testimony tomorrow.
He testified that
he was contacted by the Lewis County fire coordinator just around midnight
on the night of the fire and arriving on scene from Syracuse just after 3
a.m.
Mr. Stevens first
explained how a fire spreads, providing the jury with the basic science of
fire. When trying to determine the area of origin of a fire, Mr. Stevens
explained, an investigator will follow the path of least damage to most
damage.
He said the
investigation began immediately upon his arrival, even with fire
suppression activities still underway, when he started collecting data
points by taking photos of the outside of the structure and photos through
some of the windows of the front upstairs apartment where the two victims
were located. By daybreak investigators were able to enter the building to
conduct the bulk of their investigation.
Mr. Stevens
walked the jury through photos of each of the four apartments in the
building, starting with the least damaged- the lower back apartment, and
working to the most damaged- the upper front unit. Using photos from each
of the four apartments, along with the common hallway area of the stairwell
connecting the upper and lower front units, he explained to the jury why he
was able to eliminate each of the four apartments as the origin of the
fire. This included pictures from the kitchen area of the upper front
apartment, where Mr. Stevens said he was able to rule out this location as
the origin of the fire.
Testimony closed
for the day at 3:35 p.m., after a juror requested to exit the courtroom
briefly. Upon the return of the juror, presiding Judge Daniel R. King
indicated the juror wasn’t feeling well and closed proceedings for the day.
Mr. Stevens has
provided nearly five hours of testimony at this point, as there was an hour
break for lunch and a ten-minute break in both the morning and afternoon
sessions. He will continue his testimony beginning at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
Immediately after
the jury exited the courtroom for the morning break this morning, Mr.
Exford indicated to the court that he would like to “fire his attorney on
the record.” Judge King immediately called for a sidebar conference with
prosecutors, the defense attorney, and Mr. Exford. After a forty-minute
delay the jury returned and testimony resumed after the break with no further
mention of the issue.
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