Nightclub Fire Relatives Express Grief
Families Share Nightmares, Anger At Sentencing Hearing In 2003 R.I. Blaze
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Play CBS Video Video Kin Of Club Fire Victims Speak Bianca Solorzano reports from Rhode Island, where family members who lost loved ones in a nightclub fire in 2003 read impact statements during a sentencing trial for the man who started the blaze.
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Video Relatives On Nightclub Fire CBS News RAW: Relatives of people killed in the Rhode Island nightclub fire in 2003 read impact statements during a sentencing hearing for the man who lit the pyrotechnics.
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Jennifer Young, who lost her husband, Robert Young, in The Station nightclub fire, sits in Superior Court for the reading of victim statements during a court hearing in Providence, R.I., Tuesday, May 9, 2006 (AP)
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Dan Biechele, left, with his attorney, Tom Briody, during his hearing in Providence, Monday, May 8, 2006. Biechele, was tour manager for the rock band Great White when he set off a pyrotechnics display during a Feb. 20, 2003 concert. The resulting fire killed 100 people. (AP)
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Firefighters remove victims from the Station in West Warwick, R.I. A February 2003 fire at the nightclub killed 100 people. (AP)
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Jack Russell, lead singer of the band Great White, speaks to the media after a deadly fire in February 2003 at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I. (AP)
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The scene at The Station, a nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., after a February 2003 fire that killed 100 people. (WPRI)
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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.
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