A Vancouver man who had ambitions to become a career criminal was found guilty Sunday of five first-degree murder charges, for setting a May 2006 blaze at a townhouse in the city's east-end.
The fire killed 39-year-old Adela Etibako, her three children -- Stephane, 8, Benedicta, 9, and 12-year-old Edita -- and their 17-year-old friend Ashley Singh.
A B.C. Supreme Court jury also found that Nathan Fry guilty of attempted murder. Fry, who was 19 at the time of the crime, now faces a life sentence without chance of parole for 25 years.
During the trial, the court heard he sparked the May 15 blaze to get back at his ex-friend Bolingo Etibako for incriminating him in a pair of stabbings at a Vancouver transit stop earlier that year.
Bolingo, then 16, survived the blaze by leaping from a window and had to spend several months in hospital with severe burns.
CTV Vancouver's Shannon Paterson told CTV Newsnet that the prosecution's case centered on a videotaped conversation where Fry told undercover officers -- posing as gangsters -- that he set the fatal fire by dumping gasoline into a window and igniting it with a torch.
The Crown argued that only the true arsonist would know such details.
Fry's lawyers, meanwhile, said their client was trying to impress the supposed gang leaders and that the fire's details were well-known in Vancouver's criminal underworld.
Fry also told the court that he could not have set the blaze because he was busy stealing from a marijuana grow-op at the time.
To gain Fry's confidence and coax a confession out of him, police built up an elaborate scenario centering on the operations of a powerful criminal organization.
Jurors heard that the undercover officers were able to convince Fry he was going to be a major player in the gang. As the ruse grew more intricate, Fry was ordered to deliver packages containing guns and diamonds.
Bolingo testified that on the night of the fire, his girlfriend Ashley Singh spent the night at the family home to mark the young couple's 11-month anniversary.
Later that night, Bolingo said he tried to get Singh out of the inferno, but she fell and he was forced to jump from an upper-floor window without her.
Shortly after the fire, Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham labeled the crime as one of the worst in the city's history.
"It was a crime that devastated two families," he said.
"It would shake a community to its core and launch one of the most important and intensive murder investigations this department has ever seen."
Adela Etibako and her family fled violence in their native Congo and arrived in Canada in 1997.
After her arrival, she worked as a cleaner and became affectionately known among community members as Mom Adela.
With files from The Canadian Press
