The Harrises’ place was taped off along the split-rail fence that separated the property from the road, stopping at the far side of the driveway next to the Grey Goose gift shop. Trooper Simmons, his eyes reddened from the smoke, met him there and told him hoarsely, “Trooper Beno has found one body. We don’t know if there are more. It’s black fog upstairs. We can hardly breathe in there,” Simmons said coughing. He added, “We gotta keep everybody off the other side of the drive where we found some tire tracks.”
Flynn could see smoke coming out near the peak of the roof on the south side. Radioing Tompkins County Fire Patrol, he reported the visible smoke. He stood on the road a few minutes, waiting to direct the fire trucks to the side. Police wanted them to go in. The first to arrive was a Dryden pumper truck driven by the fire chief.
The fire in the master bedroom smoldered and went out. No water was needed there. Marc’s bedroom at the end of the hallway only took a few minutes to hose down. T he firefighters were surprised the fires hadn’t spread further, but on closer analysis, they realized the arsonist either wasn’t too smart or he panicked when he shut the doors. Fires need oxygen to bum. In Marc’s room there was a small trap door leading to the attic, which may have let enough air in to feed that fire.
Gasoline dumped on the living room carpet, on the furniture, and in the fireplace had not been lighted, and what was spread on the floor outside Marc’s room caused little damage. The solid construction of high-grade sheetrock-lined walls and ceiling helped to keep fires contained. Despite this, if whoever spread the huge quantity of fuel in the living room had torched it, the fire would have been uncontainable.
Flynn relayed to the chief what he’d heard from the state police: “They’ve confirmed one body and don’t know if there are others inside.” The pumper drove up to the house and the men immediately set up their portable pond, the supply of water that firefighters carry with them when there are no fire hydrants available.
The chief divided his firefighters into two teams—search and back-up crews. The guys who already had their air packs on formed the first crew and went inside. Flynn grabbed a fireproof jacket and high boots, put those on and then his air pack. He and his partner were part of the back-up crew. They followed the hose line in through the front door and around to the right and to the bottom of the stairs. Beno told Flynn the fire was in the room at the end of the hall upstairs. “Standinger said there’s a red glow.”
Flynn could barely see the advance team at the top of the stairs. They couldn’t hear each other speak through their air masks, so Flynn started pointing toward the doors, asking if they’d finished searching the rooms. They pointed to the room at the top of the stairs to indicate they hadn’t completed the search as their air bells were going off. While the first crew went downstairs to refill their air bottles, Flynn and his partner searched the master bedroom with a flashlight and saw the partially burned body that Beno had told them about.
Flynn’s body shook slightly. The scene gave him the chills. He noticed that some kind of cloth material hung over the windows, keeping out the daylight. “Someone created havoc in this room,” he murmured. He spotted a dog on the floor near the bath; looked like a small collie. He could see it was dead, probably from smoke inhalation. Searching the adjoining bathroom and closets, he looked for possible survivors. He turned left out of the master bedroom and went down a short hall off the balcony, searching a bathroom and another bedroom at the end of the hall. They came back to the balcony and faced the room where Standinger said he saw the glow. All they could see was smoke coming from under and around the closed door.
Flynn turned to his partner. “Grab the firehose and be ready to use it when I open the door.” He was afraid of a possible backdraft. He pushed the door back as far as it would go. About three quarters open it hit something solid—a piece of furniture, Flynn assumed. There were no flames inside, but thick smoke forced him down on all fours. As he crept inside he bumped into a body. He stretched out his hand, felt the length of it, and knew it was an adult. Crawling a little further, he felt another body, which he decided was also an adult. At that moment his low air signal went off. As he craw led out of the room and shut the door behind him he radioed the Varna fire chief that they had two more bodies. He met the attack crew on the balcony, their fresh air replenished, and pointed to the end room, signaling for them to go in and finish the search.
Downstairs, getting another air bottle, Flynn could not shake off the eerie unreality of the scene. A strange thought struck him. He decided he’d better verify that those were real bodies he felt in there and not stuffed animals. He’d feel like a damned fool if it turned out those were just a child’s toys. When he reentered the end bedroom, two men were trying to open the window; they finally smashed the glass with a crowbar and sprayed water out the window to suck the smoke out. Inching closer he still found it difficult to see clearly, but it looked as if there was some type of material covering the heads of the adults’ bodies. He saw another smaller body away from the adults, which the attack crew had discovered earlier. He bit his lip to push back his uneasy feeling. There was no doubt the carnage was real.
One firefighter with the attack crew who, like the others, found himself on his hands and knees in the room because of the heavy smoke, suddenly wanted to vomit when he realized he was crawling over one body and then another one. He couldn’t take it and got out of the room, clutching his stomach. He lurched through the kitchen hallway, tearing his mask off, his face pale.
“You guys are paid to do this. I’m not,” he said as he hurried out the front door.
After the firefighters were gone, Beno took Charlie Porter upstairs; first he showed him the scene inside the master bedroom. Then they investigated the end room. Beno hadn’t gone in there yet. Most of the smoke had escaped through the broken window panes and now outside light streamed into the room. The men saw two charred humps, slouched forward on the floor, one directly behind the other; they were bound with some kind of wire and cord to the bedposts. The larger body with loafers on was hogtied. The burned shroud over his head made Beno think of fish net tom apart. A child’s body lay along the left wall, attached to another bed. The child’s head was covered as the adult’s were. Porter assumed they had been shot. He stared at the grisly sight unable to look away. Beno couldn’t get the scene out of his mind for days afterwards.
In another neighborhood across town, Tony had arrived with his bicycle at Ithacare to ride home with his companion Joanna. He told her he had burned some people, by which she thought he meant robbed them. He got the car keys from her and waited in the truck until she got off work. On the way home they stopped off at several banks, where Tony said he wanted to get some cash. Joanna saw Tony dump a bunch of credit cards on the kitchen table when they arrived at the apartment around 8:00 A.M. She noticed the name Warren Harris was on one of the cards but said nothing.
Elizabeth and Dennis Regan had moved into their “modem Victorian” house in Ellis Hollow in November 1988. They found the design in a magazine and had the builder adapt it to their specifications. The Regan property was located down a gradual slope from the Harrises’ and on a slight downward grade from Ellis Hollow Road, which added to its feeling of privacy. The Regans were so involved with their busy lives at Cornell that neighbors were not a high priority with them; in fact in other houses they’d lived in, they barely knew who lived next door to them. But the Harrises were too nice to ignore. They were their own “welcome wagon.” Dodie brought a greeting card and a small wall plaque of a miniature Victorian house over to them soon after the Regans had moved in, and she invited them to dinner to meet other Ellis Hollow neighbors.
Now the Regans dressed quickly and rushed next door. Billows of smoke were coming out of the Harris house as they approached the circular driveway. Pink police tape extended around the perimeter of the property. Trooper Hendershott, dressed in street clothes, was guarding the entrance and ordered them to