Charges Pending For Connoquenessing Mobile Home Fire
CONNOQUENESSING (KDKA) -- Not much is left of the mobile home in Connoquenessing Borough, and now police are saying the fire may have been set by one of the people who lived there.
Charges are pending against 30-year-old Jolene Schirra for allegedly setting the fire that destroyed Janet Gongloff's house, a home Gongloff had lived in for 29 years. Schirra was seen struggling with state police just after the fire started, so much so she had to be handcuffed.
"I hope she spends the rest of her life in jail if she [set the fire]," Gongloff said about Schirra. "She deserves that.
"She just became very combative in the ambulance," Gongloff said. "She was using a lot of explicit words, and I think she spit at the police officer."
For that, police charged Schirra with aggravated assault. Charges of setting the fire are pending.
"My grandson woke me up about 3:15 a.m. and said, 'grandma, get out of the house, it's on fire,'" Gongloff said.
Gongloff's 50-year-old son Robert, Sr., lived in the house along with his 26-year-old son Robert, Jr. Schirra, the elder Robert's girlfriend, also lived in the house. The two of them were in the back bedroom where the fire started.
"I talked to my son from the hospital, and he said she dropped a bottle of nail polish remover, and she also dropped a cigarette," Gongloff said. "It could've been an accident. I'm just devastated over it all, I don't know what to think."
Robert Gongloff, Sr., remains at Mercy Hospital overnight for observation due to smoke inhalation. Everyone else got out safely, except Janet did lose her two dogs and two cats in the fire.
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