{"id":190226,"date":"2026-04-08T23:28:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/190226\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T23:28:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:28:33","slug":"queens-man-hit-with-eight-murder-charges-for-allegedly-setting-deadly-house-fire-that-killed-four-people-including-toddler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/190226\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens man hit with eight murder charges for allegedly setting deadly house fire that killed four people, including toddler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1200\" height=\"1069\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-3.jpg\" class=\"crop-center wp-post-image\" alt=\"suspect arrested in Queens house fire\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   title=\"Queens man hit with eight murder charges for allegedly setting deadly house fire that killed four people, including toddler 1\"\/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>According to police sources, 38-year-old Roman Amatitla was apprehended on April 8, with the NYPD Warrant Squad taking him into custody at his Elmhurst home.<\/p>\n<p>Photo by Ramy Mahmoud<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The man allegedly responsible for igniting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amny.com\/new-york\/three-dead-fire-rips-queens-home\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a house fire in Queens last month that took the lives of four people<\/a>, including a toddler, was charged Wednesday with a staggering eight counts of murder.<\/p>\n<p>According to police sources, 38-year-old Roman Amatitla was apprehended on April 8, with the NYPD Warrant Squad taking him into custody at his Elmhurst home. Amatitla is accused of setting the fast-moving fire on March 16 in the vestibule of 132-05 Avery Ave. in Flushing, which had a slew of violations for illegal apartment modifications and cluttered conditions.<\/p>\n<p>When the FDNY arrived to tackle the fire, they found several people morally wounded in the blaze. Three-year-old Sihan Yang, 50-year-old Chengri Cui, and a 61-year-old and 63-year-old whose identities are still pending proper family notification were among the deceased. Four others were also wounded in the blaze.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-137842393\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" title=\"Queens man hit with eight murder charges for allegedly setting deadly house fire that killed four people, including toddler 2\"  \/>According to police sources, 38-year-old Roman Amatitla was cuffed on April 8 after the NYPD warrant squad arrested him at his Flushing home.Photo by Ramy Mahmoud<\/p>\n<p>Sources familiar with the incident report that Amatitla had no connection to the building and did not know the residents. Police did not provide a motive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He was questioned by detectives at the 109 precinct before being removed in handcuffs to face a judge. He walked with his head down and refused to answer for the alleged, horrific crime.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0Amatitla has been charged with eight counts of murder, 12 counts of assault, eight counts of arson, and four counts of petit larceny, which stemmed from stealing beer from a store.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-137842394\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"839\" title=\"Queens man hit with eight murder charges for allegedly setting deadly house fire that killed four people, including toddler 3\"  \/>According to police sources, 38-year-old Roman Amatitla was cuffed on April 8 after the NYPD warrant squad arrested him at his Flushing home.Photo by Ramy Mahmoud<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to police sources, 38-year-old Roman Amatitla was apprehended on April 8, with the NYPD Warrant Squad taking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[76238,101,303,545,9,24,63,104,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-190226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-109-precinct","9":"tag-arrest","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-fire","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-police","16":"tag-queens","17":"tag-queens-headlines","18":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}