Court asked to reopen warehouse fire case Woman linked to blaze now living in Ellsworth

BOSTON – The specter of a 1942 fire hung like smoke over the state’s highest court on Thursday, as prosecutors asked that manslaughter charges be reinstated against two formerly homeless people, including a woman now living in Maine, accused of starting an abandoned warehouse fire that killed six Worcester firefighters two years ago.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys alike evoked images of the Cocoanut Grove fire, which killed 492 people in Boston – more than the city’s other great fires combined – and set the standard for negligent manslaughter in Massachusetts.

Christopher Hodgens, assistant Worcester County district attorney, said Julie King and Thomas Levesque, who lived in the Worcester Cold Storage warehouse and allegedly knocked over a candle that ignited the deadly December 1999 blaze, should be held responsible because they knew of the fire and did not report it.

“If you start a fire accidentally or intentionally, you have a duty to report it,” Hodgens said.

But Levesque’s attorney Edward Ryan said King and Levesque, who initially tried to put out the fire before fleeing, had no way of knowing that the fire would grow, much less that it would eventually engulf the building and kill six firefighters.

Even the firefighters who first arrived at the scene reported only light smoke and a single-room fire that erupted later, Ryan said.

Louis Aloise, King’s attorney, said King and Levesque may have had a “high moral duty” to report the fire and try to prevent firefighter injuries, but there is no law that requires it, so they can’t be further prosecuted.

“There is no legal duty to report a fire,” he said.

King, known as Julie Barnes at the time of the fire, since has been adopted by Tim and Deborah King of Ellsworth, Maine, who had previously adopted her sister, Jennifer. Now 22, King lives in Ellsworth and works full-time as a hotel housekeeper.

Prosecutors would like to see charges against King and Levesque reinstated after they were thrown out by a lower court. The Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments from both sides on Thursday.

Massachusetts has no law that makes negligence broadly defined a crime, though a bill to make failing to report a fire a crime is pending in the Legislature.

King and Levesque, who was then her boyfriend, were indicted Feb. 18, 2000, but a Superior Court judge dismissed the charges seven months later, ruling that prosecutors had not shown sufficient evidence.

Prosecutors appealed the decision, and the SJC agreed in September to hear the appeal.

In court on Thursday, both sides referred to the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, the second most deadly fire in U.S. history. Prosecutors compared King and Levesque to Cocoanut Grove owner Barnett Welansky, who was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter for negligently failing to provide enough fire doors and other exits.

But defense attorney Tom Carey said a better comparison for Levesque and King would be the 16-year-old bar boy who was suspected of starting the Cocoanut Grove fire when he lit a match while replacing a light bulb.

The match flame reportedly lit fake palm trees, rattan and bamboo that were part of the island decor and spread quickly throughout the club.

The bar boy was never charged because the deaths were caused by the unsafe building, Carey said, just as the Worcester firefighters’ deaths were caused by a lack of sprinklers and other factors at the decrepit Cold Storage warehouse.

“The real source of the problem was not the bar boy, and it’s not the defendants in this case,” said Carey, whose parents had dinner reservations at the Cocoanut Grove on that fateful 1942 night but changed plans at the last minute.

Worcester Fire Chief Gerard Dio said King and Levesque, who carried a cell phone but didn’t use it to call in the fire, should be held responsible.

“For every time one of the children gets married or graduates from college, their father won’t be there,” he said. “Don’t forget the six families whose lives they’ve ruined.”

King’s adoptive mother Deborah said on Thursday that Julie grieves especially for the firefighters’ children, but Deborah King said the government shouldn’t punish people for not reporting fires.

“We just want Julie to be able to get on with her life,” King said. “I think it’s time for all of us to heal.”