By Bryan Fitzgerald
The Times-Union
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — City officials said Wednesday that they did everything they could to locate tenants — including Patrick Sheehan — after a Dec. 10 fire at a McClellan Street building. The body of Sheehan, 51, went unnoticed in his apartment for three weeks after the blaze.
Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett acknowledged that Sheehan was on a list of the building’s tenants they received shortly after the fire, but that authorities did not know he remained unaccounted for until his brother reported to police on Christmas Day — more than two weeks after the fire — that the family had not heard from Sheehan since the blaze.
Bennett said Sheehan’s body could not be seen in the building and that Sheehan’s apartment was too dangerous to examine after the fire.
“I don’t see what else we could have possibly done,” Bennett said.
Sheehan died in his 902 McClellan St. apartment the day of the fire. Three weeks later, crews demolishing the building at the corner of McClellan and Eastern Avenue found his body. An autopsy report released Monday listed the cause of Sheehan’s death as asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation.
It’s difficult to tell who knew Patrick Sheehan was still missing between the time his brother went to the police on Christmas Day and when his body was found on New Year’s Eve.
Both Bennett and fire chief Robert Farstad said the they did not personally know Sheehan was missing until Dec. 31, when a crew began to tear down the building.
Schenectady police spokesperson Sgt. Luciano Savoia, said the department is not commenting on the case at this time.
Farstad added that the department acted within its standard procedure when it did not search for Sheehan immediately after the fire; he was not among tenants who were assembled on the street outside on the day of the fire.
Patrick Sheehan was described by his family as quiet man who kept mostly to himself.
Farstad said four tenants who were outside the building after the blaze told them everyone was accounted for and that the building’s landlord, Frank Popolizio, told the fire department Sheehan’s apartment was vacant at the time of the fire.
Farstad said the fire department does not search inside or outside of a building for a person unless someone, typically a family member, friend, employee, or boss, expresses concern about their person’s whereabouts.
The fire was reported around 1 p.m. Farstad said that it is not unusual for residents to be away from the building during a daytime fire.
Patrick Sheehan’s brother, Frank Sheehan, was the first to report that his brother was missing when he went to visit him Christmas Day and saw the McClellan Street building where he brother lived had been destroyed by fire.
“If we had any inkling of even one little chance out of a million that there was someone in that apartment, we would have taken the appropriate measures immediately,” Farstad said.
Last week, Popolizio told a Times Union reporter that Sheehan was the only resident from the building that had yet to contact him about their security deposit.
Bennett said Popolizio denied making that comment.
Popolizio was cited for maintaining unsafe conditions, and officials said the city plans to take him to court to recoup the $50,000 it cost to raze the building.
Popolizio did not return immediately calls for comment Wednesday.
Farstad said that smoke detectors were going off in the building at the time of the fire, but could not determine whether or not one was working inside Sheehan’s apartment.
The fire is considered suspicious, and police charged a female tenant, Debra Phelps, with drug possession after she ran out of the building disoriented.
Bennett said Phelps’ and Sheehan’s apartments were the only two that were deemed too dangerous to enter after the fire.
Officials would not comment on the ongoing criminal investigation.
Bennett said the fire department’s future protocol would not be changed due to the circumstances of Patrick Sheehan’s death and the delay in locating his body.
“Again,” Bennett said. “I don’t know how much more we can do.”
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