She saw something, and said nothing.
The Bronx mom whose 3-year-old son ignited a fire that killed a dozen people bolted the burning building without alerting residents to the fast-spreading inferno, her next-door neighbor charged Saturday.
“She did not yell,” recalled an aggravated Shevon Stewart, 44, who lost four family members in the Thursday night blaze. “You (are) the one, and you don’t call for help? …
“Call somebody! If you don’t have a phone, knock on a door. Do something!”
Stewart, who lived in the first-floor apartment next to the mom, said the woman’s only show of concern was a feeble and failed attempt to spread the alarm.
“I hear her dragging her feet,” Stewart recalled of their encounter in a dark hallway.
Snow falls on Saturday morning as police officers guard the boarded-up building at 2363 Prospect Ave. where 12 perished Thursday night.
(Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
“I can’t see her but I hear her: ‘Fire,’” Stewart said softly, imitating the woman’s halfhearted warning.
The still-unidentified mother managed to escape unscathed with her 3-year-old son and a 2-year-old child.
Fire officials said the unattended boy set off the killer blaze while fiddling with the gas stove. The child “had a history” of turning the burners on and off, said FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro.
The mother exacerbated the dangerous situation by leaving the apartment door open, with the fire and smoke soon swirling through the five-story building via an adjoining staircase.
“I am so angry,” said Stewart. “I don’t have the words. I don’t know what to say.”
As firefighters responded to the raging five-alarm blaze, Stewart watched the woman walk across the street and sit on the curb as building residents scurried onto fire escapes.
The less fortunate died inside their apartments or were discovered by first responders in the hallways or on the staircase.
Four victims, including a Bronx woman clutching her 7-month-old granddaughter, were found dead inside their bathtub once the blaze was finally extinguished.
Stewart’s anger was tempered by concern over the funeral arrangements for her sister and three nieces — along with the likely death of her brother-in-law.
Holt Francis emerged alive from the deadly mix of smoke and flames, but was surviving Saturday thanks only to life support and despite a dire prognosis.
Victims who died in a fifth-floor apartment, clockwise from top left: Shawntay Young, 19, Karen Stewart-Francis, 37, Kylie Francis, 2, and Kelesha Francis, 7.
(Obtained by Daily News)
The comatose man’s niece Carmaleta Halladene walked out of Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx to say he was a fighter and the family wasn’t ready to throw in the towel.
“We’re not pulling him off life support,” said the niece. “We’re not doing that.”
Among the dead in the 100-year-old Belmont apartment building were Francis’ wife Karen Stewart-Francis, 37, and their daughters Kelesha, 7, and Kylie, 2.
A niece, 19-year-old Shawntay Young, was also killed after coming from her basement apartment to visit the Stewart family in their fifth-floor home.
Stewart was far less optimistic about Holt Francis.
Family patriarch Holt Francis emerged alive from the deadly mix of smoke and flames, but his prognosis on Saturday was dire.
(Facebook)
“He’s not going to make it,” said Stewart. “I want to cry really bad, but I don’t know — it’s like it’s not coming. Now what do I do? What do I do?”
According to Stewart, doctors need a member of Holt Francis’ immediate family to make a decision about disconnecting him from life support.
“He was married to my sister, so she could do it,” Stewart said of taking Holt off the machines now keeping him alive. “But my sister is no more.”
Relatives, even as they waited to see if the family death toll climbed to five, launched a GoFundMe page to bury the dead in their native Jamaica.
Stewart recounted her attempts to warn relatives in the building about the fire that quickly reduced visibility to zero.
Passersby stop to pay their respects at a memorial to the fire victims at the corner of Prospect Ave. and E. 187th St. on Saturday.
(Gregg Vigliotti for New York Daily News)
She first tried to call upstairs to her sister’s apartment, and later rushed back into the burning building to bang on Young’s apartment door.
“I can’t see nothing because my eyes start burning me now,” recalled Stewart. “I kicked the door two times. I start kicking it, not knocking. Kicking it.”
Halladene, who lived on the first floor of the building as well, recalled seeing the 3-year-old boy and his mother inside the apartment many times before the fire.
“I would pass by and hear the mother screaming at the kid,” she recalled. “Sometimes he would peek his head outside the door and I would say, ‘Get back in there.’”
The Red Cross was still putting up a dozen families from the building’s 25 apartments at hotels in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. The evacuees were also given debit cards to help buy supplies.
Maria Batiz and granddaughter Amora Serenity Vidal were also killed in the Prospect Ave. fire.
(Facebook)
The tenants, out of the building since Thursday, were told they can return to retrieve some of their belongings Sunday.
On Saturday, the sister of victim Emmanuel Mensah burst into tears at the memorial outside the building at 2363 Prospect Ave.
The U.S. Army mechanic was back in the Bronx after finishing basic training and died trying to rescue others from the searing flames and choking smoke.
“He always put other people first,” said Vanessa Mensah, 20. “Why? Why couldn’t he save himself?”
Mensah, 28, was found dead in a fourth-floor apartment, one story away from the apartment where he was staying.
U.S. Army mechanic Emmanuel Mensah died trying to save others from the flames.
(Obtained by Daily News)
The blaze also claimed three members of another immigrant family.
Solomon Donkor, 49; his 17-old-daughter, Hannah Adoma Donkor; and his 12-year-old son, William Donkor, were found dead in apartment 19. The two children came from Ghana two months ago to live with their dad.
“My heart is broken,” Donkor’s friend Frederick Addison said at the memorial.
He described Solomon as a “very good man” who “never gets upset” and was excited to have his kids join him in the Bronx.
“It’s like bringing your family, your kids to this place. I mean everybody is happy for you,” the friend said.
Solomon Donkor (l.), 49, his17-year-old daughter Hannah (r.) and his son William, 12, not pictured, were killed in Thursday night’s inferno. The children had come from Ghana two months ago to live with their father.
(Facebook)
Addison said he was trying to reach Solomon’s siblings in California and his wife and mother, who still live in Ghana.
“You don’t know what to say,” he said. “The whole day I don’t know what to do.”
Police also identified another victim, Gabriel Yaw Sarkookie, 48, on Saturday.
The mourning was certain to continue into the new year, with flyers already announcing a Jan. 2 prayer service at the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
With Chauncey Alcorn
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