Oklahoma City rental house fire leaves four dead
Three women, one man in burned home not yet identified
BY ROBERT MEDLEY and JOHNNY JOHNSON
Published: November 10, 2009
Late Sunday night, 31-year-old Jose Fernando Fierro posted on his MySpace page that he was "tired” and "kick’n back having a few beers.”
An Oklahoma City firefighter stands outside a house fire at 1511 SW 56 in Oklahoma City on Monday morning. By Paul B. Southerland
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By morning, flames had gutted his home and firefighters found the bodies of three women and one man inside.
Oklahoma City fire and homicide investigators were working Monday to piece together what happened.
The state medical examiner’s office has not confirmed the man found dead in the rented house was Fierro and have not released the names of any of the three women whose bodies were found.
Police
Master Sgt. Gary Knight said a neighbor called 911 about 5:20 a.m. to report the fire at 1511 SW 56.
"Once inside, firefighters started discovering this was a fatality fire,” Knight said. "That’s when they notified our homicide unit.”
A witness who did not want his name used said firefighters pulled a woman’s body from the house.
Battalion Chief Brian Jackson said the three remaining victims "were too far gone” to remove from the house.
Melvin Watkins, whose mother-in-law owns the home, said he rented it out for the first time about three months ago to Fierro, who had been living in the house alone.
"He rented it for himself,” Watkins said. "He was going to get his kids every other weekend, and he said he wanted a nice place where there was peace and quiet.”
Watkins said he knew very little about Fierro, other than he seemed like a nice person.
One thing the landlord did know was that the smoke detectors in the house worked just fine three months ago.
"When he moved in, I had just put new batteries in,” he said. "I can still see him putting his hands over his ears when I pushed the test button. It was loud.”
With no confirmation Monday that the man found in the house was Fierro, one of his MySpace friends posted a message at 3:23 p.m. asking for answers.
"Please tell me this news I heard ain’t true!” a friend named Sheryl posted. "Man please just call me!”
In a telephone interview Monday afternoon, Sheryl, who would not give her last name, said she was worried because she had seen Fierro’s house on the news and his pickup parked in front of it.
Sheryl said it wouldn’t have been entirely uncommon for Fierro to have three women at his house staying the night on a weekend.
"He was a ladies’ man,” she said.
She said she had no reason to suspect her friend would be mixed up in anything to make someone want to hurt him. But she was also having a hard time believing there was a house fire like that and no one was able to get out.
"I just can’t believe this,” Sheryl said. "He’s just a really good guy. He liked to have fun, and everyone knew him for that, but I could never see anyone going in there and hurting him like this, but then I wonder who were the girls he was with.”
Court records show Fierro has had protective orders sought against him in
Cleveland County by his former wife,
Natalie Moon Lim, in July of this year and in 2004.
In her petition for the order, Lim, whose last name is also spelled Linn in some court records, claims Fierro was verbally and physically abusive. The protective order was dismissed after Lim failed to appear in court, records show.
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