Connecticut
Connecticut housefire kills 3, including baby; foul play suspected
Police in Connecticut say a third person has died as the result of a fire that also killed an 8-month-old baby and is being investigated as a crime.
The blaze was reported at about 6 p.m. Wednesday at a home in Wallingford, about 14 miles north of New Haven.
Police and firefighters said they initially found a man with severe burns outside the home, and he was flown to a hospital burn center in critical condition.
1 DEAD AFTER FIRE UNDER ATLANTIC CITY PIER NEAR HOMELESS ENCAMPMENT
A 19-year-old and the baby were found inside a second-floor apartment. One was pronounced dead at the scene and the other was declared dead at a hospital, Wallingford police said.
Three people, including a baby, have been reported dead in a Connecticut housefire. (FOX News)
The victims were identified Friday as 24-year-old Justin Varnado, 19-year-old Karizmah Johnson, and 8-month-old Kylenn Varnado, all of Wallingford.
Preliminary results of an investigation by local and state police and fire marshals and the local state’s attorney’s office found that the fire appeared to be a criminal act, police said. The department on Friday labeled all three deaths as suspicious.
Officials did not elaborate, and no arrests had been announced, but they said there is no threat to the public.
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Authorities said they were still trying to determine Thursday how many people were in the house at the time.
LYME — A body was recovered from the Connecticut River on Saturday, according to officials from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
At about 1 p.m., a vessel on the river reported seeing a body in the area of the Chester-Lyme Ferry, DEEP said.
The Environmental Conservation Police, along with the Connecticut State Police Major Crimes Unit and Lyme and Cheshire fire departments, responded to the area and recovered the body, DEEP said. The body has been sent to the state chief medical examiner, DEEP said.
Bill Flood, a media relations manager for DEEP, said the body was identified as a male and appeared to have been in the water for an extended period of time.
The medical examiner will determine the manner of death and EnCon is investigating, Flood said, noting there is no believed threat to the public.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Even as a born-and-raised New Yorker, I have a relatively open mind when it comes to pizza. When I’m out on the road, I’ll eat at any pizzeria as long as I can see the oven from the counter and buy pizza by the slice. However, the idea of any place outside the Big Apple proclaiming itself “the Pizza Capital of the United States” is just sacrilege. Connecticut doubled down on its ludicrous claim last weekend by approving the rollout of a special “Pizza State” license plate. This is the worst affront to the craft since Chicagoans started shilling their crust-bowl casserole as pizza.
Connecticut Foodshare
Let’s actually take a look at this license plate. One peek, we all know the rules. “The Pizza State” plate features a similar blue-to-white gradient as on the standard Connecticut license plate. The aforementioned self-proclaimed moniker replaces the state’s official nickname, “The Constitution State,” beneath the plate number. To the right of the number is an image of a pizza slice ripped straight from Microsoft’s ClipArt library. It’s a flat image that looks nothing like what’s served in New Haven. Connecticut drivers will be able to pick up a “Pizza State” plate for $65.
This is a pizza war for good
The only undisputedly good aspect of the “Pizza State” license plate is that its introduction will help feed Connecticut’s hungry. According to CT Insider, the $28.6 billion budget bill approved by the Connecticut General Assembly last weekend, which authorized the plate, also directly appropriated funding to Connecticut Foodshare. The sitewide food bank will also receive $50 from each $65 license plate fee, as it continues to provide millions of free meals to food-insecure people.
Back to the pizza debate at the heart of the matter. Governor Ned Lamont declared Connecticut the country’s pizza capital back in 2024 as part of a marketing campaign to promote the state. That declaration could have grounds for war in a different century, but individual states apparently don’t fight wars against each other anymore. Connecticut had better go back to being a UConn Husky-obsessed suburb before New York makes Greenwich the next Toledo.
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