Suspect faces trial in arson that killed 3 in Homewood
City police say blaze was set in retaliation for fistfight outside Penn Hills nightclub
The suspect in a house fire Dec. 20 that killed two women and a 4-year-old girl in Homewood was ordered to stand trial Friday.
Pittsburgh police believe Martell Smith, 41, set the blaze in retaliation for a fistfight outside a Penn Hills nightclub earlier that night.
Sandra Carter Douglas, 58, Chy’enne Manning, 4, and her mother, Shamira Staten, 21, all died in the fast-moving overnight blaze at 7634 Bennett St.
Ms. Carter Douglas’ husband, Cecil Douglas, 58, escaped by jumping from a second-story roof. He broke his ankle in the jump, and he attended Friday’s hearing on crutches.
After the hearing, he said he wants justice.
“For Shamira, for that baby and for my wife,” he said.
Investigators believe Mr. Smith doused the three-story brick house in gasoline and set it on fire not long after he was beaten in a fight with Ms. Carter Douglas’ son, Ricco Carter, who lived in the home but was not there when the fire began.
Mr. Smith’s attorney, Randall McKinney, argued in court that prosecutors had no direct evidence to link Mr. Smith to the scene.
Assistant district attorney Brian Catanzarite introduced still photos taken from surveillance videos that showed Mr. Smith fighting Ricco Carter in Penn Hills, driving to a gas station in Point Breeze, buying a container, filling it with gas, and driving away 10 minutes before the fire started.
The series of photos showed the fight in the parking lot outside the Spot Etc., a nightclub in Penn Hills, around 1:50 a.m., and a security guard breaking up the fight. Mr. Smith is then seen getting into a white Pontiac. Investigators followed that vehicle through surveillance cameras to a Sunoco gas station at 7701
Penn Ave., Detective Martin Kail testified.
About 2:10 a.m., Mr. Smith buys a 1-gallon gasoline container, fills it at the pump and drives away. The first call about the fire at Ricco Carter’s house, about a half-mile away, came 10 minutes later at 2:21 a.m., Detective Kail testified.
Investigators found traces of gasoline at the scene and determined the fire was intentionally set. Mr. Smith was later found about two blocks away from the crime scene. The blue shoes he was wearing tested positive for gasoline, police said.
Detective Kail also testified that people at the scene that night heard Mr. Smith say he set the fire.
Mr. Smith did not confess to police. He told investigators he’d run out of gas and stopped at the Sunoco to get a container of gas for his car.
The car he was driving that night was not registered to him, Mr. McKinney said. He also said Mr. Smith lives about three blocks from the scene of the fire, so it is not unusual he would be in the area.
“It would be a miscarriage of justice for these charges to be held for court,” Mr. McKinney argued to District Judge Oscar Petite Jr. during the hearing in City Court, Downtown.
The judge disagreed and held for court multiple counts of arson and homicide. After the hearing, Ayauna Staten, sister of Shamira Staten and aunt to Chy’enne, said she is hoping for justice but knows the hearing is just the first step in a long process.
Ms. Staten said Chy’enne and her mother were inseparable.
“You never saw one without the other,” she said. “They loved each other.”