Families mourn men who died in house fire

Retired Pfizer engineer, caregiver killed in East Lyme house fire

EAST LYME — Funeral services for a 95-year-old man who died in a doublefatal house fire were held last week, while the family of his caregiver who also died is trying to bring his body back to Africa.

Merrill Lozanov, 95, of Willow Lane, was a retired chemical engineer with Pfizer, according to his obituary. He was remembered in a funeral service at the Thomas L. Neilan & Sons Funeral Home in the Niantic section of town last Wednesday.

Ototegile Morulane, 46, from the Republic of Botswana, also died in the Jan. 12 fire. He was Lozanov’s live-in caregiver, East Lyme Police Chief Michael Finkelstein said.

Lozanov’s family told police the two men got along well, the chief said.

As a chemical engineer, Lozanov worked on everything from pharmaceutical development and patent acquisition to enzyme research and the retention and conservation of soil, his obituary said. Even in his later years, Lozanov kept up with developments in his field and was an avid reader, the obituary said.

“He kept his mind active,” the obituary said.

Lozanov enjoyed golfing, swimming and woodworking, his obituary said, and also liked walking his dog, talking to neighbors and interacting with their pets. He is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Joan, the obituary said.

“Merrill and Laddie, his terrier, took daily walks around the neighborhood,” the obituary said. “They knew and enjoyed socializing with all the neighbors, two and fourlegged.”

The dog wasn’t in the home the day of the fire, Finkelstein said.

Lozanov’s neighbor, Marilynn Ness, said she lived next door to him “forever.” She remembered her neighbor as an avid gardener.

“He was just great, he was very generous,” Ness said. “He had a big vegetable garden in the yard during the summer and he had no trouble at all sharing his wealth, if you will, from the yard. He just got so much pleasure out of it. And he was such a good gardener.”

“Anything he had that was ripe, tomatoes, beans. Anything that was there, it was there for you,” she recalled.

Her two daughters, Linda and Nancy, were friends with Lozanov’s daughters, she said. “Oh my goodness, we raised the children together. The girls were the same age as my girls. They were in school together.”

Morulane’s family is trying to raise money to bring his body to Botswana so they can bury him in his home country, they said on a GoFundMe page. However, the fundraiser has not yet been verified and the organizer could not be reached.

Shortly after 8 a.m. Jan. 12, a passing school bus driver saw the house on Willow Lane on fire and called 911, Finkelstein said.

Neighbor Michelle Lamar was awakened by a loud noise.

“I didn’t hear the sirens but at 8 … I was in bed and I heard a loud engine and then a door shut,” she said. “So I look out the window and I saw the fire trucks and I was like, ‘OK.’ And then I saw the smoke coming out.” She realized the house across the street was on fire.

Lamar said she didn’t see flames, “Just a ton of smoke.”

She watched as firefighters carried the occupants out of the burning house. They performed CPR on one of the victims in the front yard. But it was too late. Morulane was taken to Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, where he was pronounced dead.

Lozanov also was removed from the house and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

The men died of smoke inhalation and burns, and their deaths were ruled an accident by the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

State and local investigators determined that an overheated electrical cord caused the fire, Finkelstein said. They ruled the fire an accident.