Article content continued

No matter how many times he was thrown a ring buoy by the various lawyers, given the chance to make just a little bit nice, Strzelec seemed incapable of doing anything other than continuing to thrash about in his own harsh words.

They should have been sitting on the roof of the garage, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the fire department.

Among the galling things he either said live from the stand Friday or on an April 30, 2012, video played for the jurors of an interview with Paul Dow, investigator for the Fire Marshal’s Office, the very day after the fire:

• Of Twiddy, who was as a multiple-transplant survivor receiving Ontario Disability Support Program benefits of about $1,000 a month (and Twiddy had told Strzelec this when he was renting the flat), “It was not a person in a wheelchair who couldn’t get out.”

• Of one possible explanation for why the teenagers didn’t escape, “… again, I am speculating, I shouldn’t, but you will find once toxicology test come back there was a reason they did not get out.”

In other words, this with the young people freshly dead, Strzelec was suggesting to the investigator that they were stoned or drunk. Toxicology tests showed nothing of the sort.

• Of the fact that even now, Strzelec still hasn’t put a single fire extinguisher in the house or installed a rope ladder as an emergency way out for the second-floor flat, he told Aliza Kroly, lawyer for the families, “People have to take responsibility for their own actions.”

• Of another possible reason the kids didn’t escape, “Unless, and again pure speculation, they were dazed and confused before this fire started. We’re talking, you know, Saturday night, a young man, the first time on his own, two young girls — they were not reading the Bible, right?”