4 killed at Snohomish trailer park; police call fire suspicious

SNOHOMISH — Relatives say Sandra Maria Montano Reynaga and her younger sister, Claudia Petra Montano Reynaga, spent years working at a number of Mexican restaurants in Snohomish County, scraping together enough money for a small piece of the American dream.

Last week, the two women from Mexico and Sandra Maria's two daughters, ages 4 and 7, moved into a modest trailer in Snohomish, where they began to set up house and took steps to enroll the eldest child in school.

Tuesday, all four were killed in an early-morning fire that has been labeled suspicious by police after a chemical accelerant was detected in the wreckage.

"They had a simple life," friend Vitalina Valladeras said of the victims. "They were very good, very beautiful people."

The fire was reported just before 7 a.m. by passers-by who saw flames and smoke shooting out the front entrance of the single-wide home in the 1300 block of Avenue D. Firefighters were able to contain the fire and prevent it from spreading to other homes in the tightly packed trailer park by 7:23 a.m., said Snohomish police Chief John Turner.

The bodies were found in their bedrooms, police and fire officials said. They would not say whether there were indications that any of the family members had tried to escape the blaze.

According to Turner, a specially trained dog from King County later detected a type of hydrocarbon liquid, a flammable liquid, in the wreckage of the home, prompting authorities to call the fire suspicious.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the fire was set intentionally, he said.

"It's way too early to tell that at this time," Turner said. "The dog hitting on it, in and of itself, doesn't mean it's arson ... But it's a case that warrants careful examination and careful investigation."

He said common household items, such as nail polish or lighter fluid, could have caused the dog's alert.

Initially, police indicated the fire could be arson, but later in the day backed off from that assessment.

Turner said investigators would continue to process the fire scene through Tuesday evening and into this morning, but that further action would depend on the results of the autopsies and any findings by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is assisting in the investigation.

Police said the residence, which did not appear to have a smoke detector, had an electrical wall heater and a wood-burning stove.

"Mobile homes are notorious, especially of that age, for being large ovens," Snohomish Fire Department Deputy Chief Ron Simmons said.

Officials did not release the names of the victims, but they were identified by family members who gathered through the day at a nearby fire station.

According to the women's brother, Miguel Montano Reynaga, none of the mourners could imagine that the tragedy was anything other than an accident.

Reynaga said Sandra Maria was 28 and Claudia Petra was 25. Other family members identified the dead children as 7-year-old Ashley and 4-year-old Jarele or Yareli, although there was no consensus on how the younger girl's name was spelled.

The girls' father has been deceased for several years, authorities said.

Relatives said the two women moved to Snohomish County from Jalisco, Mexico, about four years ago, and had made their living by working at several restaurants in the area, including Tampico in Everett and El Tapatio in Snohomish.

Until last week, they had lived in a Monroe apartment, Valladeras said.

Both were hardworking, thrifty and thrilled when they were finally able to buy their own property, family members said.

Sherree Simpson, who manages the 44-trailer park, said the women had just bought their mobile home and moved in on Friday.

"They were brand-new to the park," she said, her voice breaking.

Turner said police had collected at least 30 witness statements and were in the process of getting a search warrant for the property on Tuesday.

The fire is believed to be the deadliest in Snohomish County since April 27, 1998, when eight people were killed in a blaze at the Arlington Manor boarding home in Arlington.

In King County, the remains of 28-year-old Olga Milkin and her sister, Lyubov Botvina, 24, and Milkin's two children, Justin, 5, and Andrew, 3, were found in the burned-out wreckage of the family's Kirkland home on July 17, 2006. Neighbor Conner Schierman, 27, was arrested and charged with killing the four before setting fire to the house.

Schierman's trial is set to begin April 1 in King County Superior Court.

Seattle Times staff reporters Sonia Krishnan and Lynn Thompson, news researcher Miyoko Wolf and Robert Hernandez, director of development for seattletimes.com,

contributed to this report.