Three Black females – 4-year-old Chy’enne Manning, her mother, Shamira Staten, 21, and Sandra Carter Douglas, 58 – were all murdered in what police say is a an arson fire.
Police say that the suspect in a fatal house fire that killed two women and a 4-year-old girl in Homewood early Wednesday was seeking retaliation for a fist-fight outside a Penn Hills nightclube.
“Yep, yep, I did it. They shouldn’t [mess] with me,” 41-year-old Martell Smith of the North Side uttered repeatedly as he watched firefighters battle the blaze at 7634 Bennett St., a witness told police. The fire had started shortly after 2 a.m.
Martell Smith was charged Thursday morning with multiple counts of homicide, arson, and endangerment. He is being held in the Allegheny County Jail.
Apparently, Martell Smith got into a fight that night with another man, Sandra Carter Douglas’ son, who also lived at the house but who wasn’t even there when, according to authorities, Smith doused the house with gasoline and set it on fire.
