GARY, Ind. (Sun-Times Media Wire) -
Two northwest Indiana men were charged Thursday with setting a July fire that killed a woman and her daughter inside their apartment in Gary.
Trevontay Milsap and Rafael Peluyera, both of Lake Station, Ind., were charged Thursday with murder, murder in perpetration of arson, and four counts of arson, according to a statement from the City of Gary.
The men are accused of starting a fire at the Lakeshore Dunes Apartments in Gary that killed 33-year-old Bernice King and her 14-year-old daughter Angel Harris, the statement said.
"Janice King had to do something today that no one would ever want to do, and that's bury her child and grandchild," Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said in the statement. "We have waged an all-out war on crime in this city. There are more law-abiding citizens than not, and it's time for the majority to rule."
The two died as firefighters fought a blaze that began outside their apartment door on the top floor at 5805 Kennedy Terrace. Most of King's other children, five boys ranging in age from 5 to 20, were home when the fire started about 12:30 a.m. on July 25.
Officials at the scene said it appeared an accelerant outside the front door was the origin of the fire, which quickly spread down the hallway to other parts of the building.
Gary Fire Chief Teresa Everett described it as a "moving fire" that went through the ceilings. The entire building was evacuated and is uninhabitable because fire, smoke, water and structure damage.
When the first fire truck arrived, some residents were hanging out of their windows waiting to be rescued.
Several people climbed out windows and down ladders to escape the blaze. Four residents and a firefighter required medical attention, Everett said.
King and her family moved to the apartment from Lake Station, where she had been arrested for selling drugs to undercover officers.
She had been charged three separate times with drug offenses, including dealing cocaine, and was serving four years' probation that began when she pleaded guilty last year.
