Sterling fatal apartment fire trial to head to jury

MORRISON — A Whiteside County jury will begin its deliberations Friday into whether a Rock Falls man is guilty of first-degree murder and arson in connection with a 2020 fire at the Western Apartments in Sterling that killed two children and a woman.

Thursday marked the third day and final day of testimony in the trial of Steven W. Coleman, 44, who is charged with six counts of first-degree murder and four counts of arson in connection with the June 1, 2020, fire at the Western Apartments, 908 W. Third St. Prosecutors throughout the trial have worked to prove that Coleman set the fire as an act of revenge that came hours after he paid for cocaine that turned out to be fake.

Killed in the blaze were Celina Serrano, 13; her cousin, Shyla Walker, 8, of Davenport; and neighbor Carrie A. (Hall) Hose, 49. All three died at the scene. Hose’s body was found in her bathtub in her main-level apartment. The two girls were found in the apartment across the hall in its living room.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, prosecutors called to the stand firefighters, fire investigators and police officers who were at the scene of the fire, as well as forensic and DNA experts who conducted tests on a phone – found outside the apartments as the building was still burning – that investigators said belongs to Coleman.

Thursday morning, prosecutors called Coleman’s then-girlfriend and his brother to the witness stand to provide details about the hours leading up to the fire.

Carly Fischbach, under questioning by Whiteside County State’s Attorney Terry Costello, told the jury that she and Coleman had been together for a few years in 2020 and were living together in Rock Falls. She said she and a friend had gone from her Rock Falls home to the Western Apartments on May 31, 2020, where they purchased cocaine from a man before returning home and using it.

Later that day, Fischbach arranged to get more cocaine from the same man, only it was the dealer’s girlfriend who brought the cocaine to Fischbach and Coleman’s home, she testified. Coleman had given Fischbach $150 to purchase the drugs, she said.

Fischbach testified that the substance didn’t look like cocaine, sending Coleman into a rage, during which he was yelling about spending money for fake drugs. She said he also commented that he was going to “light up the Western.” She said that she did not know what that meant and that Coleman left the house, got a ride and she continued drinking, which she had been doing throughout May 31 and into the early morning hours of June 1.

She contacted Sterling police on June 2, the day after the fire, and was interviewed twice to provide information. She also told them a gas can was missing from their detached garage. The couple did not drive and had to get around by asking for rides; the gas can would have contained gas for mowing, she said. She also said while Coleman called off from work on June 1, he did go to work June 2, which gave her the opportunity to talk to police.

Following her testimony, Coleman’s brother, Jesse, was called as a prosecution witness. He said he and his brother had not spoken for a few years and he was surprised when he answered his phone sometime in the late evening or early morning of May 31 into June 1 to find out it was Steven on the other end of the line. Steven needed a ride, Jesse said, and while Jesse didn’t want to pick him up, he did because he was afraid of Steven and felt threatened.

“I was confused and afraid of him,” he said, adding he drove 7 miles from his Sterling home to get Steven, learning that Steven wanted to go to the Western Apartments. He said Steven had a gas can with him and told Jesse that he “needed a ride to burn the ‘mofo’ down.”

Jesse dropped Steven off at the apartments, then drove to his own home, located about three blocks from the Western Apartments. He did not go back to pick up Steven and learned the next day the apartments burned. In the days that followed, police interviewed Jesse three times.

The first two times, Jesse admitted on the witness stand, he did not tell police about the gas can. It was after seeing his brother while visiting their mother’s home, where Steven was pacing in the front yard, looking worried and making a comment about “being smoked,” that Jesse in the third interview told police about the gas can.

“He’s always been threatening to me,” Jesse said when testifying about why he didn’t speak up sooner about the gas can. “I was afraid. I knew I had to come forward and tell what I knew.”

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Carly Fischbach points to and identifies Steve W. Coleman in court Thursday, July 18, 2024. Fischbach, Coleman’s ex-girlfriend, took the stand for the prosecution. (Alex T. Paschal)

He said that while he had been served a subpoena to testify, he would have been at the trial anyway.

“I need to be here today to fix everything here, to put things right, to let everyone know why I gave him a ride,” Jesse said.

Jesse Coleman was the last witness to testify for the state, which rested its case at 11:10 a.m. The defense presented its entire case Thursday afternoon, resting its case at 2:40 p.m. Public defender Dana McCormick called one witness, arson investigator Marc Fennell, to question him about the thoroughness of lead investigator Michael Poel’s probe into the fire.

McCormick has said Poel, of the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office, arrived at the scene and told an officer, while the fire was still burning, that based on his training and experience that the fire was probably started with an accelerant. She has stressed to the jury that the statement was made before the fire had been extinguished and before police were able to get into the building to investigate. Four debris samples take from the fire scene tested negative for gasoline.

The building had four apartments on the upper level and four on the lower level, with one shared entryway on the building’s western side. While Fennell agreed with Poel’s report that the fire’s origin was in the entryway, he said he didn’t necessarily think the fire had been set. He said more work needed to be done, such as checking the electrical system, to determine the cause of the fire, which he said should have been ruled as having an unknown cause based on how the investigation was carried out.

The trial will convene at 9 a.m. Friday with jury instructions and closing statements. The jury will then begin its deliberations.

Each of the first-degree murder charges is punishable by 20 to 60 years, or up to life in prison, if he is convicted. Of the four arson-related charges, three carry six to 30 years in prison and one carries four to 15 years. Coleman has been in the Whiteside County jail on $1 million bond since his arrest on June 5, 2020.

Whiteside County Circuit Court Judge Trish Senneff is presiding over the trial.