Nightclub Fire Relatives Express Grief

Deb Gerfin is haunted by nightmares of her husband's final moments as flames spread across the walls and ceiling of The Station nightclub in 2003.

The inferno on Feb. 20, 2003, the fourth-deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history, killed 100 people and injured more than 200.

"Have you ever had to tell your children that their daddy is missing and presumed dead, and hear them wail in grief?" Gerfin asked in a statement read by a prosecutor Tuesday during a sentencing hearing for the former band manager whose pyrotechnics ignited the blaze.

"How do you convince them everything will be all right when it never will again? I have to be strong for them, even when my heart is breaking," she wrote.

Her husband, Melvin Gerfin, was among those trapped inside the small nightclub as people rushed the doors to escape.

Daniel Biechele, the former tour manager for the band Great White, pleaded guilty in February to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Under his plea deal, he faces up to 10 years in prison when the judge sentences him on Wednesday.

First, the 29-year-old is hearing from the victims' relatives. Several spoke in person on Monday and Tuesday, Prosecutors read statements from others.

Jennifer Young stood in the courtroom and wept as prosecutor Randall White read her statement. It described a happy marriage and plans for a family, then dashed hopes for a long life with Robert Daniel Young, who died in the fire at the age of 29.

"I'm left with a lonely, empty house with nothing left but my sadness," she wrote.

On the night of the fire, as the band launched into its first song, Biechele ignited four small pyrotechnic devices that each sprayed 15-foot-long streams of sparks. The sparks quickly ignited flammable foam used as soundproofing around the stage and engulfed the building.

The owners of the nightclub, brothers Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, are accused of installing the flammable foam. They have pleaded not guilty to 200 counts of involuntary manslaughter — two counts for each person killed, under separate legal theories. Michael Derderian's trial is tentatively scheduled July 31; his brother's trial has not been set.