By JACQUELINE SOTEROPOULOS
Philadelphia Inquirer
A jury of six men and six women must decide whether a blaze that claimed the life of two Philadelphia firefighters last year started in a marijuana “grow closet” and whether the Port Richmond man who grew the plants recklessly disregarded the danger of creating an oven-like atmosphere in his basement.
Daniel Brough, 37, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of third-degree murder, causing a catastrophe, and drug possession with intent to deliver. He is free on $150,000 bail.
Jurors began their deliberations yesterday, on the 12th day of an emotional and often technical trial that featured expert testimony on tracing the origins of the fatal fire. The jury is scheduled to resume work today before Common Pleas Court Judge David N. Savitt.
Capt. John Taylor, 53, of Northeast Philadelphia, and firefighter Rey Rubio, 42, of North Philadelphia, were asphyxiated Aug. 20, 2004, after Rubio became entangled in Brough’s cluttered, burning basement on Belgrade Street. Taylor died at his side, trying to rescue him.
More than two dozen firefighters watched the trial’s closing arguments yesterday, during which Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron, pointing at Brough, described Taylor and Rubio as “two good firefighters who gave up their lives protecting him, and his house, and his closet, and his marijuana.”
Cameron said Brough’s journal proves he knew that conditions in the homemade greenhouse were too hot and that the 1,000-watt grow lamp was scorching the plants - and that it ultimately ignited the fatal fire.
Defense attorney William T. Cannon asked the jury to find Brough not guilty of all charges.
Cannon argued that testimony from the defense’s expert witness showed that the blaze likely started in a tool closet adjacent to the marijuana grow closet. Burn patterns on the wall showed the fire igniting in the tool closet, which had a greater quantity of flammable objects inside, Cannon said.
“Do you think that Mr. Brough ever thought that death would result from his conduct of growing marijuana in his basement?” Cannon asked. “We’re talking about a man who was growing these plants in the home where he lived with his mother, where he lived with his wife, where he lived with his children.”
Cannon called Brough’s greenhouse a “very sophisticated set-up” that his client carefully built and monitored. The plants inside, Cannon said, were for Brough’s 20-year habit of smoking four or five marijuana joints each day.
Cameron, who placed into evidence a full-size reconstruction of the four-foot-wide plywood grow closet, told jurors that Philadelphia fire marshals concluded the fire began in that closet.
And Cameron said Brough’s spiral-bound journal, which chronicled the daily growth of the marijuana plants he repeatedly called “my girls,” was the strongest piece of evidence that Brough knew of and ignored the danger.
“Too tall,” Brough wrote on Aug. 5, 2004, 15 days before the fire. “They’re hitting the glass... the buds are burning... Love the girls.”