A July house fire in New Jersey that initially produced a neighborhood hero has now led to a murder charge against him. Prosecutors in Union County say 70-year-old William Ahle of Fanwood, a New York City suburb, is accused of killing his 82-year-old neighbor, Virginia Cranwell, whose body was found after firefighters responded to the blaze on July 25. Ahle faces counts of first-degree murder, felony murder, burglary, and second-degree aggravated arson, NBC News reports. Cranwell had lived next door to Ahle, a retired corrections officer, for more than 30 years. He was briefly hospitalized with burns he said he had suffered in an attempt to rescue Cranwell.
In the days after the fire, Ahle's son told NBC New York that his father had rushed into Cranwell's home in an attempt to pull her to safety. "He just looked, saw the flames, went in. He apparently opened the bedroom door and all the flames just burst out, he fell backwards and I guess that's how he got all his burns," Matthew Ahle said. "I'm happy he tried, he tried his best." He told WABC that his father noticed the fire when he was walking his dog at 1:30am and entered the home through the garage, which "was open for whatever reason."
Authorities say the medical examiner later ruled Cranwell's death a homicide and investigators concluded the fire had been deliberately set, leading them to identify Ahle as a suspect. Prosecutors have not disclosed a motive.
Yvonne McManus, Cranwell's daughter, tells the New York Times she gave Ahle a big hug before he was taken to the hospital. "I did not know he was a murderer," she says. Looking back, however, "nothing made sense," McManus tells the Times. "They said the fire was contained in the bedroom, that it started right in front of her bedroom door and she was trapped in the bedroom," she says. "In fact, someone from the fire or the police told me at the time, 'Your mom's house must have been really insulated—it was such a hot fire, and it didn't spread to anywhere in the house.'"
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
