An arsonist may have set the Queens garage blaze that killed two suspected squatters over the weekend, and cops are now investigating both deaths as homicides, officials said Tuesday.
Edward Daniel Jacobs, 35, and a woman who has not been identified pending family notification died in the fire that erupted around 6:30 a.m. Saturday in the detached structure on 91st Avenue near 175th Street in Jamaica, authorities said.
An arsonist may have set Saturday’s Jamaica fire that killed two people inside a detached garage, cops said. Brigitte StelzerPolice now say the blaze appears suspicious. They did not reveal why.
Either way, investigators are looking into whether the pair had been squatting in the garage, an FDNY source told The Post on Saturday.
There was “heavy clutter” in the space, an NYPD official said.
The home’s front door had no lock on it, said Fahim Shawon, a student studying at Brooklyn’s St. Francis College who lived on the home’s second floor, to The Post.
People could often be seen coming and going from the first floor and the garage out back, Shawon said over the weekend.
“I used to not even know that people lived in the garage,” he said. “One day, the cops came, and they were searching for people … and they told me.
The two deaths are now being investigated as homicides, cops said. Citizen
Both fatal victims may have been squatting in the garage, sources said. Brigitte Stelzer“Last night, there were four or five [people] on the stairs,” he added. “I just rushed past them to my door. On the stairs, you see needles, smoking. I have seen those things. It was always bad things.”
The potential arson was only the latest apparent crime involving squatters in the area.
A massive fire in Irvington, NJ, destroyed a row of five homes last month — and authorities said they were investigating whether squatters who had taken over one of the dwellings were responsible for the blaze.
About 30 people, including 26 adults and four children, were left homeless by the inferno.
This past spring, two teen squatters allegedly stomped a woman to death in Manhattan, too.
The victim, Nadia Vitels, 52, had returned to her apartment on East 31st Street after a trip to Spain and was greeted by squatters 18-year-old Kensly Alston and Halley Tejada, 19, authorities said.
Tejada began kicking and pounding on Vitels with his feet, prompting his twisted girlfriend, Alston, to urge him to put on shoes — so he didn’t hurt himself, officials said.
Vitels was badly beaten but still breathing when the murderous pair stuffed her into a duffel bag and shoved her a closet, officials said. The victim eventually died — and she was found with her leg sticking out of bag and a cord wrapped around her neck, prosecutors said in court.
The teens were charged with a slew of raps, including second-degree murder.
