The fire that consumed a home and caused the death of eight people from the Payares Sánchez and Lizcano Sánchez family, last December in the Santa Isabel de Neiva neighborhood, was unprovoked. “Expert experts rule out the participation of criminal hands,” said the sectional director of the Prosecutor’s Office in Huila, Dairo Fernando Herrera Iglesias.
Rafael Rodríguez C.
rafael@lanacion.com.co
There were no criminal hands in the house fire that caused the death of eight members of the Payares Sánchez and Lizcano Sánchez family, in the populous Santa Isabel neighborhood, in the south of the city of Neiva.
“The involvement of criminal hands is ruled out. There are other sources that apparently generated this event,” revealed yesterday the sectional director of the Prosecutor’s Office in Huila, Dairo Fernando Herrera Iglesias, in dialogue with LA NACIÓN.
The flames took over the house at one in the morning last Saturday, December 16, 2023, while José de Jesús Payares, Laura Diana Sánchez, Brayan Lizcano Sánchez, Laura Michell Lizcano Sánchez, Orlando Mauricio Sánchez, were sleeping in the rooms. Marleny Gutiérrez Cardoso, Mathiu Payares Sánchez and Laura Joven Murcia.
Fire and explosives experts
The tragedy, which in seconds went viral on social networks and escalated to national media, caused the Attorney General’s Office to order the displacement of the post-fire and post-explosive group of the Technical Investigation Corps to the capital of Huila ( CTI).
“The scene of the events was approached with all the established protocols and the group, in coordinated work with the fire department, in principle has determined two very clear situations…”, stated the Sectional Director of Prosecutors in Huila.
The first conclusion from the analysis of the evidence collected allowed the experts to establish that the fire started in the room where the six motorcycles were stored. “The point of origin of the conflagration or combustion that in turn generated the fire occurred in the living room of the house, that was established by virtue of these studies,” said prosecutor Herrera Iglesias.
The investigation also allowed us to establish that the fire was not created on purpose. “The second situation determined by the group of expert experts in this type of phenomenon is that the participation of criminal hands is ruled out. There are other sources that apparently generated this event,” said the official.
And the experts have not only collected material within the rubble of the house that they left without a floor, for the moment, the intervention of people in the fire, but the analysis of videos from security cameras in the sector allowed the Investigators establish that no person was near the house minutes before the fatal conflagration.
“We have done a judicious job with the cameras of some neighbors, we rule out that people were loitering as had been announced or at least not at the time of the events, comparing it with what the cameras of some neighbors recorded,” said Herrera Iglesias.
Added to the technical evidence are the statements of the victims’ relatives, who have ruled out that the fire was arson. “Some relatives who live near the place where the events occurred told us that they had no knowledge that this was due to criminal hands, that they were not aware that there were suddenly people who were related to the guilt of the events,” said the chief. of the prosecutors in Huila.
Regarding the reports that a person had thrown an explosive device, thus causing the fire, the official reiterated that the presence of people near the house was ruled out. “The investigative activities, mainly the security cameras that some homes had, do not allow us to establish the presence of a third party outside the house, much less an action of launching an explosive device or some other element that would start the combustion process.”
Continue the investigation
Despite the analysis of the first evidence collected and which rule out for the moment that the fire was arson, the Prosecutor’s Office continues with the investigation to clarify what caused the fire that ended the lives of the eight people who took refuge in the bathroom.
“We have received testimonies from some people who eventually stated that the cause was originated by third parties with criminal intentions, we insisted on interviewing that person who suddenly generated the information and in the end stated that he did not want to continue providing the information because he considered that he did not want to be immersed in problems, there was no further contribution of information,” said prosecutor Herrera Iglesias.
He maintained that the cell phones that were recovered from the rubble of the house are being analyzed and conversations that could shed light on what happened are being established. “For the judicial investigation of relevance, there are some mobile phones that could be rescued that were not damaged as a result of the fire situation and we are extracting the information with the purpose of determining if the information that was already contained, we can talk about another hypothesis. “It is in the process of extracting and subsequently analyzing the information.”
The tragedy
“It’s a fire, which none of us expected, I was lying down, when the neighbors were shouting, ‘Orlando, Orlando’, their house is burning, I got up scared and ran over there to their house, but when I arrived “The flames were already very high, the candle was very strong.”
This was what Orlando Sánchez Charry, 64 years old, told about the raging fire in which seven of his relatives died, who lived in the house located on Calle 4 Sur with Carrera 19, in the Santa Isabel neighborhood, in the south. From neiva.
The flames took over the house at one in the morning last Saturday, December 16, 2023. “We woke up in the middle of the darkness, we were suffocating from the smoke, the power cords were lighting up and we saw that The fire was in the house next door,” said Elsy Vargas, a resident of the residence.
The bodies were taken to the ‘Hernando Moncaleano’ University Hospital, where they arrived without vital signs. “They all went to the bathroom and died there of suffocation,” Sánchez Charry said that day.
Prosecutor Dairo Fernando Herrera Iglesias recalled yesterday that the eight people ran to the bathroom of the house in search of safety from the flames. “What the images show us is that the entire group of people tries to seek refuge in the bathroom, perhaps thinking suddenly they could turn on the tap and that the water could protect them, they all settle in that part of the place, suddenly they don’t. “It gave them time to locate an exit.”
The judicial official pointed out that the investigation has had the support of the Judicial Police, both the Sijin of the Neiva Metropolitan Police and the CTI, in addition to the participation of the Neiva Fire Department, who attended the catastrophe.
