Sisters die in S. Boston fire

Officials suspect blaze was set deliberately

A South Boston teenager and her toddler sister, described as "inseparable" in life, died together early yesterday in a fast-moving fire in their wooden townhouse that investigators suspect was deliberately set after their mother had a loud argument with another woman, city officials said.

Friends and neighbors described the teenager, a student at Patrick F. Gavin Middle School, as an aspiring athlete who was devoted to her younger sister. Neighbors and friends of the victims gathered near the family's charred home and at the middle school yesterday, where officials sent grief counselors to meet with them.

"She loved that baby," Marie Cardinale, a neighbor, said of the older victim. "They were inseparable. That's why they died together. They held each other tight."

No charges had been filed as of last night, but one official said police were questioning a man late yesterday. The official would not release further details but said police were seeking to question others, including the woman who had argued with the mother.

"Homicide investigators are con ducting interviews, and preliminary information indicates that the fire was intentionally set," said a second city official.

Boston police spokesman Eddy Chrispin confirmed last night that "an arson investigation is underway . . . to determine if this will be a criminal investigation. The Police Department will base their investigation on the Fire Department's investigation into the cause of the fire."

At the scene shortly before 11 p.m., Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said the exact cause had not been determined. "We're still investigating," he said. "Police and fire investigators are going to return [this] morning to continue the investigation. They are going to wait till daylight to continue going over the physical evidence that's in the building."

The bodies were removed from the house about 11:15 p.m., shortly after the medical examiner arrived.

Before then, according to one of several officials from different city departments who spoke on condition of anonymity, police were seeking to get a search warrant for the burned townhouse and trying to get a warrant to search an apartment in the D Street housing project, less than a block from the fire scene.

Fire Department officials said the mother and brother of the victims were taken to Boston Medical Center with nonlife-threatening injuries including smoke inhalation. Fire and police officials had not confirmed the victims' identities early yesterday evening. The dead victims were identified, however, by one city official and neighbors as Acia "C.C." Johnson, 14, and Sophia Johnson, 2; the mother was identified as Anna Reisopolous, 34, and the brother as Raymond Johnson Jr., 14, Acia's twin. The spellings and ages could not all be confirmed.

One neighbor said police on the scene restrained the mother from rushing into the burning house.

"She was saying 'Can you get my kids? Go in and get my kids,' " said the neighbor, Daniel Zyskowski, 50. "She was crying for her babies." He said the woman also screamed aloud, "Take me, not my kids."

The blaze, which was reported at 3:18 a.m., left the three-story townhouse a blackened hulk. Damage was estimated at $500,000.

It took firefighters about 20 minutes to put out the blaze, which had moved so fast that the two victims could not be saved, MacDonald said earlier yesterday. The girls shared a room on the third floor, Cardinale said, and their brother slept in another room on the same floor. MacDonald said last night that the girls were found in a third-floor attic closet.

The intensity of the fire was clear as investigators pulled out debris, including waist-high pieces of mangled plastic, the remnants of trash cans.

"How it started and why it spread so quickly, that's part of the investigation," MacDonald said. "The whole front of the building was on fire." Seventy-five firefighters were brought in to fight the blaze, MacDonald said.

At least two other homes on the street were damaged in the blaze. An American Red Cross spokeswoman said the relief agency was providing temporary housing for eight adults and two children who were displaced.

One neighbor said police knocked on his door as the fire was spreading.

"When I opened the door, smoke just blew into the house," said the neighbor, who declined to give his name.

Another neighbor, who lives next door to the burnt-out house, said she was woken up about 3 a.m. by screaming.

"We got up, went to the window, and saw the smoke," said the woman, who declined to give her name. "We got ourselves and we got our dog and we went out the back." The woman and her boyfriend collected belongings yesterday from their home, which sustained minor fire damage.

MacDonald said residents in adjacent homes reported hearing smoke detectors going off, but it was not clear whether any worked in the home where the fire started.

Bystanders yelled at anyone inside the house to jump as the flames intensified, he said.

"The flames were so intense; I've never seen anything like it in my entire life," Zyskowski said.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino visited the site to meet with investigators and firefighters, calling it "a very tragic scene."

"This fire did not start on its own," said City Councilor At Large Michael Flaherty, who said he had spoken with various officials at the scene.

"This was a vicious act that stole the lives of two innocent children. As a father of four, I am disgusted."

The fire was on a street where residents typically sit on their stoops watching children playing outside. Neighbors said the teen victim was captain of the middle school's girls basketball team, but friends said she was equally devoted to her schoolwork and her family, especially her younger sister over whom she doted.

She liked rollerblading, riding her bike back and forth across the street, and neighborhood cookouts with a couple of close neighbors, Cardinale said.

Mario Reyes, a 15-year-old friend of the older victim, said the girl ran track and played basketball at South Boston's Condon Community Center.

Johan Vizcaino, also 15, said she had a good sense of humor and was formidable on the basketball court.

"I used to play basketball with her. She was really good at it," Vizcaino said. "She used to baby-sit her [younger sister] all the time."

Throughout the afternoon, dozens of area residents, mostly teenagers, gathered outside police tape at the corner of D and West 6th streets. Some cried and hugged, while others simply watched the scene. Plastic flowers were left at a light post, and a group of four teenagers held up roses.

"I've been crying for four hours straight," said Brandy Artes, 13, who said she and the victim played one-on-one basketball every day.

Friends of the teenage victim also showed up at Patrick F. Gavin Middle School throughout the morning yesterday, said Jonathon Palumbo, a Boston public schools spokesman.

"The principal happened to be there, so he obviously let all the students in," Palumbo said.

"He called our main office and we were able to get some counselors over to the school."

Donovan Slack of the Globe staff and Globe correspondents Michael Naughton, Alex I. Oster, Emily Canal, and Sean Greene contributed to this report.