Six hours in a courtroom

The London fire department was called to a house on fire at about 11:11 p.m. on June 1, 2006.

The first crew arrived about three minutes later. By the time firefighters entered the house and got upstairs, there was a dead body in one of the bedrooms.

Six firefighters who had helped put out the fire that night testified in court today with Superior Court Judge Helen Rady presiding.

Loranzo Kimpe, 39, is charged with arson and the second-degree murder of his common-law spouse, 33-year-old Deborah Devine. He is accused of strangling her, then setting on fire the house they shared for 11 years.

The firefighters each recalled their observations from the night of June 1. The witnesses included firefighters Aaron McCutcheon and Thomas Salmoni, of Fire Station 5, and Brent Taylor, Captain Timothy Askin, Daniel Glanville, and Terri Taylor, all from Fire Station 9.

McCutcheon, Salmoni and their captain, Don Harrington, were first on the scene. They both testified that when they arrived at 609 Deveron Cres., there were people around the front yard waving them down.

McCutcheon testified he had to hit the door “more than 12 times” with a sledgehammer before getting in.

Upon entering the house, McCutcheon said he saw an orange gas can on the front landing.

Salmoni testified he and Harrington proceeded up the stairs to the main floor. At the top of the stairs there was another gas can—“a red jerry can,” he said.

Both McCutcheon and Salmoni said the main floor and stairs were filled with smoke. When Salmoni felt his knees grow hot, he told his captain he thought the fire was in the basement.

The three men went downstairs and put out a flame in a basement living area.

By that point, the second crew had arrived. Askin and Glanville went upstairs to the kitchen and living room. They each testified to seeing another gas can in the kitchen, lying on its side. After searching the rest of the floor, Askin entered the bedroom at the back of the house and found strong flames and thick smoke coming from underneath a bed.

He testified he told Glanville to bring a water hose to put out the fire. Upon reentering the bedroom, Askin saw a body lying on the bed. He said he grabbed a leg but was unable to move the body off the bed.

Glanville and Taylor testified that when they returned to put out the flames, the bedroom ceiling collapsed on them. They removed some of the debris and approached the body.

Assistant Crown attorney Melody Martin asked Taylor how he knew it was a body under the debris.

He replied, “I just knew by the feel of it.”

Taylor testified the facial features were severely burned and he could not tell whether it was a male or a female. He found no signs of life in the victim.

Kimpe’s son Robert, 14, was living at the house until a week prior to the fire. The firefighters did not see him when they were there.

The trial resumes Thursday morning.