The
demonic sicko who
admittedly started a
Brooklyn fire that
killed five people
last week told The
Post yesterday he
deserves "to be
punished" -- and
repeated his claim
that Satan made him
do it.
"It must have been
the Devil. It could
not have been Jesus
Christ," Daniel
Ignacio, 27, said
from the Bellevue
Hospital Prison
Ward. "I know I have
to face a living
hell now and God's
judgment later."
Ignacio, a day
laborer who was once
deported back to
Guatemala but
returned illegally,
confessed to
igniting the fire
last Sunday that
swept through a
Bensonhurst
apartment building,
killing five
neighbors -- but he
swears it wasn't on
purpose.
Multiple bottles of
vodka had him in
such a dark mood, he
said, that he was
thinking of suicide
before stupidly
dropping a cigarette
on a pile of
carpets, then
falling asleep.
"I never lived
right, under God's
eyes," he said. "I
know I deserve to be
punished for this."
But that clashes
with a police report
that says he
deliberately soaked
toilet paper in
paint thinner and
set the blaze in a
stairwell -- out of
anger that a baby
carriage had been
left in his way.
Ignacio yesterday
called that account
"exaggerated" and
repeated: "I went
outside to smoke a
cigarette, and when
I came inside, I
discarded it on the
carpet."
He added that he was
so depressed that he
combined paint
thinner with the
vodka in hope of
killing himself. But
he can't remember
whether he actually
drank it, he added.
In the days
immediately after
the fire, Ignacio
was hailed as a hero
for having pulled a
child to safety. But
surveillance video
that showed him
smoking just before
the fire's onset
raised suspicions.
Of those days just
after the tragedy,
he said: "I'd close
my eyes and hear
screaming. My head
was spinning. At one
point, I wanted to
turn myself in."
He said he knows
that Miguel Chan,
who lost his wife in
the fire and whose
2-month-old daughter
was seriously
injured, "hates me
and will never
forgive me."
Ignacio came back to
America, he said, to
make enough money to
marry the mother of
his 5-year- old son
and build a house in
Guatemala.
Now he fears that
word of what he did
has already made its
way to his hometown
of San Andreas.
"This," he said,
"could kill my
mother."
douglas.montero@nypost.com
