After the Fire: A True Story of Love and Survival (19 page)

Chapter 29

S
hawn graduated from Seton Hall on May 10, 2004, with a degree in business management. He was among more than two thousand graduates at the commencement ceremony at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford. Sitting in the arena, under a huge net of blue and white balloons, with his parents, his sister, Nicole, and his girlfriend, Chinaire, looking on, he thought about how far he had come since the fire. He thought about the dedication of his mother, whose optimism and determination had left him no choice but to reclaim his life. He thought about his three classmates who had died in the fire, who never got a chance to fulfill their dreams. He thought about Alvaro.
I wish he was here, sitting right next to me in his cap and gown
.

Alvaro would have been there if he could. But he was lying in a hospital bed at Saint Barnabas, recovering from another skin graft surgery, this time on his neck. It was his twenty-third birthday, but he wasn’t thinking about birthday cake or gifts. He was thinking about Shawn. What better way to celebrate than to think about his former roommate finally reaching his dream?

“I’m so happy for Shawn,” Alvaro told a friend who was visiting. “I wish I was there with him. But he’s finishing and I’m starting. I’ll get there, too.”

Alvaro had his own good news to share. A day earlier, in his hospital room at Saint Barnabas, he had gotten down on one knee and proposed marriage to Paula. Her answer was, “Of course!” Hani Mansour had been the first person on the staff to congratulate them. “A wedding!” he had exclaimed. “Look how far you’ve come, Alvaro! When will we see children?” Alvaro and Paula had often talked of having a big family someday, but Paula found herself pregnant sooner than they had planned. Many of her friends had children born out of wedlock, but Paula was determined to be married when she gave birth. “Marriage is important to me,” she had told Alvaro. “I want to be married when our child is born.” Alvaro was happy to oblige her.

A month after the engagement, on June 26, 2004, Paula and Alvaro married in a small ceremony at Paterson City Hall. Paula wore a pretty white pants suit with pink flowers that Daisy had bought for her. Alvaro dressed in a black shirt and khaki-colored trousers. Only their families attended. The ceremony was simple but emotional.

“Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” the judge asked Paula.

“I
do,
” she answered, fighting back tears.

“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” he asked Alvaro.

Alvaro grinned from ear to ear. He had never been so absolutely sure of anything before in his life.

“I do,” he said softly, looking into Paula’s eyes. “I
do
.”

Five months later, at 11:47 p.m. on November 28, 2004, Ariana Izabella Llanos was born at Saint Barnabas. Everyone in the burn unit cheered when word filtered upstairs. Paula had gone into labor while making bows for the family Christmas tree. She sang all the way to the hospital. The birth was fast and relatively easy. Alvaro videotaped the whole thing. The waiting room outside the maternity unit was overrun with Llanos and Vasquez family members.

Waiting for her granddaughter to be born, Daisy couldn’t help remembering those somber days in the burn unit. Those nights wondering if she would ever get to touch her son again, ever get to hear him say he loved her. Even after Alvaro was out of danger, she and her husband had been consumed by worry that Alvaro would never find love, never have children, never enjoy the simplicity of a normal life again.

Then he had found Paula, and everything had changed.

“¡Gloria a Dios, hay razón para ser feliz otra vez!” Daisy prayed that night.

Glory to God. There is reason to be happy again.

Alvaro shut himself in his bedroom and began writing.

These seven years have been hard for my family and me; this tragedy has given me many obstacles to overcome. I will always remember the day of the fire, waking up to alarms and smoke, trying to find a way out of the building, fearing for my life. I’m reminded every morning of this when I look at my face in the mirror. My body is covered with scars . . .

A few weeks earlier, just before opening arguments in their arson and felony murder trial were about to begin, Joseph LePore and Sean Ryan had struck a plea deal with prosecutors. After three years of being free on bail, they had exhausted all their appeals. Rather than leave their fate in the hands of a jury and risk spending the better part of their lives behind bars, they would admit to setting the dormitory fire in exchange for five-year jail terms and a chance at parole after sixteen months. For their part, the prosecutors had feared the case against LePore and Ryan might not hold up at trial and they would walk away free. The plea deal brought about an abrupt end to a case that had seemed destined for a long, dramatic trial.

Sipping tea in the kitchen of the burn ICU, Hani Mansour had read the headline and thought back to the worst day in the burn unit’s history. He looked up from his newspaper and into room 4. It didn’t seem that long ago that Alvaro had lain there, fighting for his life. Now the bed was empty.

The next day, Friday, January 26, 2007, LePore and Ryan would be sentenced, and Alvaro would get his chance to ask why.

Why did you set the lounge on fire? Why did you run out of the building without warning all of us? Why did you lie and deceive everyone for all those years, living your lives, going to college, kissing your girlfriends, celebrating Christmas and birthdays with your families, instead of admitting that you had done something stupid, so tragically stupid? Instead of saying you were sorry. So very sorry.

Shawn had decided not to attend the sentencing. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be in the same room with LePore and Ryan. He was feeling some anger and didn’t know how he would handle it.

“I’m not going,” he told Alvaro on the phone that night. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

So it would be up to Alvaro to speak. This would be the last big step of the most painful journey of their lives, and he would take it for both of them. He would do it for himself, and he would do it for Shawn — Shawn, who had been there for him at every turn. When he woke up from his long coma. When he looked in the mirror for the first time. When things ended with Angie. His former roommate had become a cherished friend.

As Alvaro tried to put his thoughts on paper, his heavily scarred hands still shook from the exertion. But he would not be deterred. He wanted those two boys to know the damage they had done, how much heartache they had caused for him and for Shawn and for the dead boys, too — for all the people whose lives were forever changed by Ryan and LePore’s one stupid act.

It saddens me to hear what my family had to go through, seeing me in a coma for so long, not knowing if I would be alive when they got there the next morning. When I finally did wake up, I couldn’t speak or walk. I was connected to machines. It was scary for me. I had so many ups and downs. To this day I have times when I don’t want to step out the door, when I feel trapped in my own skin.

Two hours later, Alvaro emerged from his room with a single sheet of paper that reflected seven years of suffering.

To this day I have times when I don’t want to step out the door, when I feel trapped in my own skin.

After a sleepless night, Alvaro and his family drove to the courthouse in Newark in silence. Alvaro trembled during the whole forty-minute ride. Paula draped her arm protectively over his shoulder as they huddled together in the backseat. Alvaro’s heart raced wildly and he felt as though he might be sick.

The ninth floor of the Essex County courthouse swarmed with news crews volleying for the best seats in the small courtroom where the formal plea proceeding would take place. The left side of the room was reserved for victims; the right side, for supporters of the defendants. It was standing room only in the sweltering courtroom, and the tension was thick as people jostled for a spot. Alvaro sat toward the front of the courtroom, near the parents of the boys who died. They all hugged him. A moment before the proceedings were about to begin, LePore and Ryan walked through the overflow crowd in the hall and into the courtroom. LePore stopped to kiss his girlfriend on the way. Both men turned to greet family members and friends with hearty hellos and wide smiles. Alvaro looked at them and suddenly felt sicker.
How can they be smiling? What is wrong with them? Don’t they know the parents of the dead boys are here?

Judge Harold Fullilove called the court to order. The room fell still. Frank Caltabilota Sr., whose son died in the fire, was the first of fourteen victims to speak. “Mr. LePore and Mr. Ryan, I have waited exactly seven years and one week to tell you both what I think of you and how your stupid prank that got out of hand has affected myself and my family.”

Under the plea agreement, the prosecutors had agreed to drop the most serious charge — that of felony murder. LePore and Ryan agreed to plead guilty to arson and witness tampering. By accepting the plea, they were spared the minimum thirty-year prison term they would have gotten had they gone to trial and been convicted of murder. The prosecutors also dropped the obstruction of justice charges against LePore’s family. The five-year sentence was a joke, Frank Caltabilota said, echoing the feelings of most of the victims. Their true punishment would come later, he said. “That sentence, Mr. LePore and Mr. Ryan, will be that both of you rot in hell.” The defendants’ families and friends were expressionless, completely dry eyed.

Alvaro turned to look at LePore and Ryan. He could see their profiles and wanted them to turn to their left to meet his eyes, to look at his scarred face, to see the anger in his eyes. He wondered if he would see something in their eyes. Sorrow? Regret? But they didn’t look, and now it was his turn to speak and the room began to spin. Seven years of pent-up emotion circled in his head, and his eyes began to tear.

“I can’t do it,” he whispered to Paula. “I can’t.”

Squeezing Alvaro’s hand, Paula took the piece of paper from his lap and walked to the front of the courtroom. She swallowed hard and then began reading from the paper, which shook in her hand. Now Paula was speaking for him. “
My heart goes out to all the families who have lost family members in this tragic fire,
” she said, reciting Alvaro’s words before bursting into tears. Then Alvaro burst into tears, too.

Paula was helped back to her seat by a sheriff ’s officer. She buried her head in Alvaro’s shoulder and sobbed while the prosecutor picked up the paper and began where she had left off.

“
Right now I can’t see myself ever forgiving these two kids for starting this fire,
” the prosecutor said, reading the words Alvaro had written in the privacy of his room the night before. “
If it was a mistake, they should have been man enough to bang on people’s doors and save everyone’s life. Instead, they ran off like the cowards that they are. One question I have always wanted to ask is why. What was your reason for starting this fire?
”

It was a question that would not be answered. Not now, not in this courtroom. Maybe not ever. When it was their turn to speak, LePore and Ryan recited similar statements.

“I, along with Sean Ryan, lit a banner on fire that was draped across the couch in the third-floor lounge of Boland Hall. There’s nothing I can do to take your pain away,” LePore said, looking straight ahead at the judge. “I’m sorry.”

“I am very, very sorry,” Ryan said, glancing toward Alvaro and the families of the dead, then quickly looking away. “I hope you can move on.”

Ninety minutes after the proceeding had begun, it was over. LePore and Ryan were led out of the courtroom in handcuffs and shackles. Their loved ones wailed. They did not look back.

If they had, they would have seen Alvaro wiping away his tears.

Shawn picked up the phone on the first ring. It was Alvaro. He knew it would be.

“I couldn’t do it,” Alvaro said. “I tried, but I broke down.”

“I know,” Shawn said. “I was watching on TV. I’m proud of you, Al. You went. You were the strong one.”

“It’s over,” Alvaro said.

“Yes,” said Shawn. “It’s over.”

Epilogue

A
lvaro and Paula Llanos have two children, a girl and a boy.

Shawn Simons has two sons. He is engaged to Chinaire Fields.

Both Shawn and Alvaro work at the
Star-Ledger
in Newark, New Jersey.

Hani Mansour is still the director of the Saint Barnabas Burn Center. He continues to dream of one day returning to Beirut to open a burn unit there.

John Frucci is no longer investigating fires. When the Seton Hall fire investigation concluded, he asked to be transferred out of the arson unit. He now works homeland security.

Joseph LePore and Sean Ryan, known as inmates 570191 and 570192, are serving sentences at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Chesterfield Township in Burlington County, New Jersey. In separate hearings in March 2008, each went before the New Jersey State Parole Board to make their case for early release. Both were denied. The parole board received more then three hundred letters opposing their release. The panel told LePore he could reapply for parole in eighteen months. The earliest he can go free in November 19, 2009. Ryan’s next possible parole date in April 19, 2009.

Acknowledgments

Let me begin by thanking Shawn and Alvaro for the privilege of allowing me to tell their story. They opened their hearts and trusted me with the most intimate details of the worst days of their young lives and, in the process, taught me the meaning of courage and grace. I cherish them both and always will.

I have had the good fortune to work with incredibly talented people. I am even more fortunate that they have been willing to share their gifts with me.
Star-Ledger
editor Jim Willse — “Mr. Willse” to me — groomed me for the best newspaper job in the world, and I am impossibly indebted to him. This book would not have been written had it not been for Fran Dauth, editor and friend, who called me into her office on a morning in January 2000 and asked if I would be interested in telling the story of the students who were burned in the Seton Hall fire. She guided the year-long project to its exalted place as the most successful series in the
Star-Ledger
’s history. Thanks doesn’t begin to express my gratitude. Guy Sterling, Brian Murray, and Kelly Heyboer, your tenacious reporting on the fire investigation made all of us at the paper proud. Thank you for sharing your notes, your sources, and your expertise.

Little, Brown has been more than kind to a first-time author. Geoff Shandler believed in this book, then made it better with every stroke of his magic red pencil; and Michelle Aielli advocated for it with incessant enthusiasm.

A special thanks has to go to Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey. Few hospitals would be willing to take the enormous risk it did of allowing a journalist in to watch high-risk patients in treatment, when death was the likely outcome. A decision was made at the highest level to allow me unfettered access to the burn unit. I believe this was done because the hospital realized that only a total cynic wouldn’t recognize the wonder amid all the sorrow. Few people outside the unit would ever have known about the miracles that happen there had it not been for the hospital’s public relations director, Robin Lally, and, of course, the incredible Hani Mansour and his staff, who urged the decision makers to take the risk. Thank you all for trusting me to tell the story of your extraordinary unit, and for allowing me to become part of your close-knit family. As the wonderful burn nurse Kathe Conlon told me early on: “Not everyone is accepted in the burn unit. You have to pass the test.” I’m thankful I did.

I have amazing friends: Jayne Daly Munoz, Mary Romano, Kitta MacPherson Lucas, Kenny Cunningham, Marianne Timmons, Robin Boyle, thank you for believing in me.

Amy Ellis Nutt, dear amiga, few are your equal in prose, and you gave your precious time unselfishly to refine and polish mine. The value of your friendship is incalculable.

Matt Rainey, your haunting Pulitzer Prize–winning photos bring me back to those long, grueling days in the burn unit, when our working relationship blossomed into an enduring friendship.

Marilyn Dillon and Brian Horton, you inspire me.

My family is the wind in my sail. Dad, you taught me decency, drive, and determination; Carolyn, you filled a pair of shoes I thought no one could fill — my mom’s; Scott, how many other brothers would read every word? You rock. Penny, on that dark day thirty-two years ago, we vowed to stick together through whatever else presented itself, and we have. You are sister and soulmate. Yvonne (Tootie), Nicole, Shawn, Emily, and Peter, my dear nieces and nephews, I couldn’t love you more if . . . well, you know the rest.

Loren Fisher, the day I met you was the day the possibilities began. For eighteen years, you have shown me unconditional love, respect, and acceptance. I believe in me because you do. Now let’s go to Vermont.