FILE -- The 1993 apartment fire in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles that left 10 people dead. (credit: CBS)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two middle-aged gang members and a woman accused of setting a deadly Los Angeles fire 24 years ago to get even with an apartment manager who tried to shut down drug dealing were charged Tuesday with a dozen counts of murder.

Ramiro Valerio, 43, of Palmdale, Joseph Monge, 41, of Montebello, and Johanna Lopez, 51, each pleaded not guilty to charges that could bring the death penalty, Los Angeles prosecutors said.

The May 3, 1993 fire was set as revenge after a new apartment manager tried to stop rampant drug dealing in the building filled with poor immigrants, authorities said.

The fire blaze killed seven children and three women, including two pregnant women. The trio was charged with two counts of murder for the two late-term fetus deaths, prosecutors said.

The three were held without bail following their arraignments Tuesday afternoon. It wasn’t immediately clear if they had attorneys who could comment on the allegations.

Someone set a mattress ablaze in a hallway, causing fire and smoke to spread throughout the building as the manager was moving into a second-floor unit of the three-story, 40-unit building in the Westlake neighborhood.

The residents, nearly all of them from Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala, tried to escape by jumping from windows and climbing down bed sheets tied to balconies. Neighbors formed a human chain to pass down children from upper floors. Other children were dropped from balconies into waiting hands.

Lopez had been arrested in 2011 in connection with the deadly blaze and was awaiting trial, according to court records. Valerio and Monge were arrested by Los Angeles police detectives on Feb. 3.

In 2013, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division began a fresh examination of the case and began re-contacting witnesses. Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said residents of the apartment building had initially refused to cooperate with police after the fire, fearing retaliation from gang members, but some have now agreed to testify to testify in the case.

Two men were charged in the 1990s, but the cases were eventually dropped for a lack of evidence.

Prosecutors have not said if they will pursue capital punishment in the case.

Police said a fourth person was being sought, but no information about him was released because he fled the country.

Prosecutors said the 10 people killed included: 24-year-old Olga Leon and her three children, ages 4 to 7; 29-year-old Alejandrina Roblero and her three young children who were between 6 and 11; 21-year-old Rosalia Ruiz; and a one-year-old child, Lancy Mateo.

Leon and Ruiz were pregnant when they died.

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