Grandfather, 70, dies after fire set in Brooklyn apartment: police

A 70-year-old grandfather was killed after his mattress was intentionally set ablaze by his girlfriend inside their Brooklyn apartment, police said Saturday.

Cops arrested 65-year-old Jennifer Rochard, victim Vetus Roberts’ live-in girlfriend and charged her with murder and arson.

“My dad was hard-working and loved, and he shouldn’t have died that way,” said victim Vetus Roberts’ distraught daughter Genaira Roberts as she fought back tears. “What was done to him was wrong…. They’re going to pay for it. That’s it.”

The fire broke out inside the first-floor apartment on Monroe St. near Throop Ave. in Bedford Stuyvesant at about 11:15 p.m. Friday.

When the fire was extinguished, firefighters found Roberts dead in the bedroom.

Rochard was found outside the apartment, suffering from smoke inhalation. She was taken to Woodhull Hospital for treatment and was later arrested.

FDNY fire marshals called to the scene determined someone used gasoline and a candle to set fire to Roberts’ mattress.

Rochard was caught on a neighbor’s ring camera leaving the building moments after the fire started without alerting anyone, a witness said.

On the third floor, Justin Coward said he was playing video games in his apartment and his grandmother called out that she smelled smoke.

“She tell me she smells smoke, she smells smoke, she smells smoke,” said Coward, 24.

Coward stepped into the living room and found the floor covered in a smoky haze. He then began alerting his neighbors to the fire.

“I just had to get everybody out,” he said.

He ran down to the second floor to alert the oldest tenant in the four-story apartment building, a woman in her 80s.

“I made sure she was good,” he said. “I knocked on doors. Boom! Boom! Boom! ‘Get out! It’s smoking!'”

Another neighbor called 911 as Coward went to Roberts’ apartment. The overheated doorknob nearly scalded his hand, he said.

Coward said he could not see any flames until firefighters arrived and cut down the metal security gates covering the apartment windows

“When they bust down the gates, that’s when you see the flames shoot up to the sky,” he said. “The flames were engulfing. There was heavy thick smoke.”

As he escaped the smoke-filled building, Coward said he saw Rochard outside looking dazed.

“She was in another world,” he said .

Coward said he also saw Roberts’ body under a sheet.

“It’s still got me in shock,” he said. “I used to see him all the time in the summer sitting here.”

Roberts, a retired carpenter who helped build sets for the New York City Ballet according to his Facebook page, had three children and three grandchildren, his daughter said. He had lived in the apartment for more than a decade, neighbors said.

“He put his family first,” she said. “He would have sacrificed his last for his family.”

His daughter said she and her siblings didn’t have a good relationship with Rochard, who was also his caregiver. As he got older Roberts had trouble seeing and walking, neighbors said.

Genaira Roberts said she last spoke to her father on the phone on Wednesday.

“We’re trying to take one step at a time,” she said. “We’re still having to process.”

Coward said he couldn’t believe that the fire could have been intentionally set.

“There’s love in here,” he said, describing the building’s tenants. “That’s crazy to me. That one is catching me off guard.”