She screamed, “I don’t care if you die!” as she ran away from the scene of the crime in Queens, where she is being sought by police for setting a fire that killed her ex-boyfriend and his new female friend.
The two-story garage where the victims were squatting on 91st Ave. near 175th St. in Jamaica caught fire at around 6:35 a.m. on November 2. Shocked neighbors chased the suspected arsonist for a short way before losing her.
Police sources told the Daily News that they think the fire was started by Edward Jacobs’s ex-girlfriend.
“This is a jealous girlfriend,” she told her 26-year-old friend Sad-e Jean Baptiste. “This wasn’t fair to Jacobs.” There was nothing bad he did that made him deserve this.
Jensen, 35, and Anastasia “Star” Ettienne, 33, who was visiting him, both died in the fire. The NYPD says that their deaths were murders.
Jean Baptiste said, “The suspect did tell me a few times that she wanted to do this.” “She told some people, ‘I swear I’ll set him on fire the next time I see him with another girl.'” “This is messed up.”
A man who lived in the garage with Jacobs and got out of the fire without getting hurt says that Ettienne first ran away from the fire but then went back in to try to save Jacobs.
The man said, “We were upstairs.” “Eddie was sound asleep while Star and I talked, and she was laughing.” Someone enters the garage. It was her voice that told us, “You’re going to die today!” At first, we didn’t know who it was. I can’t believe you do this to me over and over! “You’re going to die!”
“We could smell something sweet on fire,” he said. “We had to jump over the burning couch when we ran out.” We had to jump. To get out, I had to jump over. Star and I both jumped over it, but she then went back to save E. When she woke him up, he was still sleepy.
This is where Ettienne never came back out. They both died at the scene from breathing in smoke and getting burned.
The victim said, “I got out, but I had to go through all the stuff.” “The front of the garage was on fire from top to bottom.”
FDNY Battalion Chief Jack Flatley said soon after the fire was out that firemen found the burning garage even though they were first called to the wrong address one block away.
Downey said, “There was a lot of smoke.” “Fire was coming out of the garage.” Based on reports and reports from neighbors, we thought that people were living there, so we did a thorough check and found the two victims.
Police say the person who set the fire may have done so by putting gasoline on the couch and putting things on the stairs that were flammable. The couch was in the way of the stairs.
The survivor said that Jacobs was “building a man cave for us on the second floor of the garage,” and the couch was in the way because Jacobs couldn’t move it all the way up by himself.
“It was a bad relationship,” the survivor said of Jacobs’s connection with his ex. “She used to tell everyone that she was going to kill him and burn down his house.” “We laughed at her.”
He also said, “It’s sad.” “I liked all three of them.”
Star’s family didn’t know she had died until a family friend told them about the fire and said he thought one of the people who died might have been Ettienne.
Her sister Jah’Aisha Ettienne called the morgue and told them about her brother or sister’s tattoos to get proof. The next day, fingerprints were used to prove it.
The upset sister said, “My mother is lost and upset.” “Losing a child is hard.”
“She was dealing with being high and trying to stop,” her sister said. “She didn’t want that around her kids.”
“She was really trying to get better for her kids and her new grandchild,” her sister said. To raise money for the funeral costs, the sister set up a GoFundMe page. “Our family is very close.” That means it’s really, really hard.