Caleb Lacey’s murder trial begins

Eleven months after Morena Vanegas and three of her children were killed in a North Lawrence fire, relatives sobbed through much of Monday’s opening day of the trial that will determine whether neighbor Caleb Lacey was responsible for the victims’ deaths.

Vanegas’s sisters, Yolanda Lopez and America Chavez, were in tears as county prosecutor Michael Canty presented gruesome video evidence taken at the crime scene last Feb. 19, the day of the fire, a television screen showing four bodies inside their charred apartment. Lacey, who last winter was a first-year probationary volunteer with the Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department, is accused of dousing the only stairwell in the two-story building with gasoline, setting it ablaze and then driving to the firehouse, planning to be a hero by responding to the scene to put out the flames.

“I can’t control myself,” Lopez said moments after seeing the images of her dead sister, nephew and two nieces. “It is so hard to see these photos of my family.”

The fire killed the 46-year-old Vanegas, her 19-year-old son, Saul Preza, and daughters Susanna and Andrea Vanegas, 13 and 9, and relatives struggled to rein in their emotions during Monday’s opening statements at Nassau County District Court in Mineola, as Canty and Lacey’s attorney, Chris Cassar, outlined their cases to the jury.

Before they entered the courtroom, Lacey’s father, the Rev. Richard Lacey of the Outreach Church in Inwood, held hands with family members and prayed. Lacey declined to comment on his family’s emotional state as his 20-year-old son faced second-degree murder and arson charges, and a possible sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

During the first day of what is expected to be a month-long trial, Judge Jerald Carter said he would consider allowing the prosecution to show the jury a tape made by police in which Lacey confessed to the crime. In pre-trial hearings, Carter ruled that the confession would not be shown to the jury because of the tape’s poor sound quality, and that Detective Carl Re, who elicited the confession, Carl Re, could not testify about it because he continued to question Lacey even after Lacy had invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.

But after Cassar referred to the eight hours of police questioning of his client in his opening statement, Carter said he would consider allowing the prosecution to admit the tape into evidence because Cassar may have misled jurors into thinking there was never a confession. Cassar described to the jury how Lacey was subjected to hours of grueling questioning on March 20, even after repeatedly saying he did not start the fire, and was denied a request to speak to his father.

“He had no choice in that room,” Cassar said of Lacey, “but he stuck to his guns and said, ‘I did not start this fire.’”

Cassar also claimed in his opening statement that Morena Vanegas’s husband, Edit, should have been investigated more thoroughly by police. “He didn’t get his daughters out,” Cassar said. “He didn’t get his wife out. He didn’t get his stepson out.” Edit Vanegas escaped the fire with two of his sons by jumping out of a second-floor window. “They went after an easy target,” Cassar said of Lacey.

Cassar also told the jury that Vanegas had an abusive relationship with his wife and had been in and out of family court and living apart from his family, with a girlfriend, before the fire. Vanegas, who wept loudly moments before the trial began, is scheduled to testify as a witness for the prosecution.

In his opening statement, Canty said that Lacey did not intend to kill anyone when he set the fire, but described the then 19-year-old as someone who was tired of being teased by friends for missing out on calls to big fires and wanted to be a hero. Canty said that after setting the fire, Lacey drove to the Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department headquarters to ready himself to respond with his fellow volunteer firefighters.

“The case is sad, it’s tragic, but it’s also criminal,” said Canty, who also stated that gasoline was detected on Lacey’s clothing. “What will be borne out by the evidence is that Caleb Lacey made a decision to start a fire that morning.”

Outside the courtroom, Lacey’s brother Leon expressed deep frustration at how detectives treated Lacey during his questioning last March. “It was illegal what the detectives did,” Leon Lacey said. “They kidnapped my brother.”

“We just want justice,” said Morena Vanegas’s mother, Yolanda Turcios. “We want thus guy to pay for what he did.”

At the conclusion of the trial’s first day, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice expressed confidence that Lacey would be found guilty. “What you heard in the opening statement was a mountain of evidence that all pointed to Caleb Lacey,” Rice said. “We have put this case together in painstaking fashion, and I believe strongly that the jury will connect the dots and hold the defendant accountable for this unspeakable tragedy.”