By Jim Patten and Paul Tennant
The Eagle-Tribune
HAVERHILL, Mass. — Police said anger caused a city woman to set eight fires since 2006 in two Emerson Street apartment buildings where she lived. One of those fires, a Dec. 6 blaze at 94 Emerson St., destroyed the building and injured three firefighters and three tenants and left 23 people homeless.
Patricia Mandigo, 55, of 99 Emerson St., was arrested at the police station early Sunday morning after an investigation, and was charged with eight counts of arson of a dwelling.
Yesterday in Haverhill District Court, Judge Stephen Abany ordered Mandigo held without bail pending a hearing to determine whether she poses a danger to the community and should be locked up pending her trial. That hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
According to court records filed in the case, Detective Carl Rogers interviewed Mandigo around 3 a.m. Sunday, and she admitted to setting three fires that day. The fires were extinguished by residents of 99 Emerson St., according to the records.
Mandigo said she was having a “bad night” because people were taking advantage of her and the rent was due. So she took a face cloth, lit it on fire with a lighter, and dropped it out a window and it landed on a roof extension below the window, police said.
Her husband put the fire out with water, according to Rogers’ report.
Then, Rogers’ report said, she lit an air freshener in the hallway on fire. A first-floor tenant put out that fire. The next fire, she said, was a calendar, which she ignited with her lighter and tossed out a window.
That brought the Fire Department and police.
Rogers said Mandigo also admitted to setting a May 28 fire at 99 Emerson St. Again, she said she was having a “bad night” because people were taking advantage of her, police said. She took a shirt, lit it on fire, opened a bedroom window and tossed it out. The fire damaged a roof and siding. It also brought the Fire Department.
On Feb. 1, 2006, while living at 94 Emerson St., the building that eventually burned to the ground, she got sick of people hanging around her apartment. So, according to Rogers, she went to the basement and lit a storage area on fire. The fire spread to the walls but was put out by firefighters.
On Feb. 19, 2006, she was upset her daughter’s friends were hanging around her apartment, so she went into the common hallway and lit a stack of papers in a closet on fire.
June 6, 2006, according to Rogers’ report, she was upset about being blamed for trash in the hallway at 94 Emerson St., so she lit a box on fire and the Fire Department responded.
On Dec. 6, 2007, the night of the three-alarm fire that leveled 94 Emerson St., Mandigo told Rogers she and a friend lit candles in a second-floor apartment. Then, they went to Mandigo’s first-floor apartment and the friend went to buy pizza. Mandigo said she got upset because she thought her friend was taking too long, so she went back to the friend’s second-floor apartment, took one of the candles and set a couch on fire.
Marcos Cruz and his wife, Lidia, have lived in their apartment at 90 Emerson St. for three years, along with their two children.
They were there when 94 Emerson St., the building next door, burned down. They feared the flames would spread to their apartment building the night of the fire, but 90 Emerson St. is made of brick, which likely kept the fire from spreading.
Cruz and his family could not live in their apartment for two weeks, he said. They stayed at the Citizens Center, then at a hotel. The power to their building was shut off and they lost a lot of food, he said.
“If she started the fire, she should pay for it,” Cruz said of Mandigo.
“A lot of people could have died,” Cruz said. As it was, “a lot of people lost things,” he said.
The building was just north of downtown.
Detective Capt. Alan Ratte said Rogers was called to the 99 Emerson St. address about 3:11 a.m. Sunday to assist firefighters after three fires were set at the building.
Mandigo was at the scene and was taken to the police station for questioning, and subsequently arrested.
Ratte said she has been charged with setting a May 28 fire at 99 Emerson St., as well as the three Sunday morning fires there.
During the investigation of the fire that leveled the apartment building at 94 Emerson St., leaving an empty lot, it was determined that a candle had fallen onto a couch in a second-floor apartment igniting the blaze.
At the time, fire officials ruled the fire an accident, but during the investigation of the Sunday morning fires, Rogers and Sgt. Paul Zipper, a state police arson investigator, were able to piece together enough evidence to charge Mandigo with setting that fire as well.
“There actually was a candle, but she threw it on the couch,” Ratte said.
Zipper said he was called in to help Rogers with the follow-up in the probe.
He said there are numerous reasons why people set fires, including anger, revenge, profit, vanity, (someone sets the fire then “discovers” it to become a hero) and crime concealment.
For Mandigo, it was anger, Zipper said.
“Basically, everything was anger,” he said. “There was always a trigger for her to do that.”
He said smoke detectors in the hallways alerted the occupants of 99 Emerson St. to the fires.
Copyright 2009