Woman killed in Queens garage arson fire went back in to save her sleeping friend: witness

One of the two people killed in a Queens garage fire that police say was started by an arsonist initially escaped the deadly blaze — but ran back in to wake up her sleeping friend only to get trapped inside, a man who says he was in the garage when it went up in flames told the Daily News.

Edward Jacobs, 35, and Anastasia Ettienne, 33, who was known as “Star,” died on Saturday after the cluttered two-story garage they were in located behind a private home on 91st Ave. near 175th St. went up in flames around 6:35 a.m., police and Ettienne’s family said.

The deaths have been declared homicides, police said Monday. No arrests have been made. Cops are investigating if the fire may have been set by a woman who knows the man who died.

The man who spoke to The News said he and Jacobs had been illegally living in the two-story detached garage, and Ettienne was there to visit.

“We were all upstairs. Eddie was sleeping, and Star and I were talking. And she was laughing,” the man said. “Somebody comes in the garage. We didn’t know who it was … We smelled something sweet burning. I don’t know if it was gasoline or what. We ran out and the couch … was on fire, and we had to jump over it to get out. Star jumped over with me, but she went back in to save [Jacobs]. He was still groggy when she woke him up,” the man said.

Ettienne was halfway to the exit when she noticed Jacobs was not following them and went back to get him. But the fire quickly got out of control, the man said.

“I got out, but I had to get through all the clutter. The whole front of the garage was on fire, the whole automatic entrance was on fire. The whole way was blocked,” the man said.

Ettienne’s family started worrying about her on Saturday night when a family friend told them about the fire and said he heard one of the victims might be Ettienne. “A friend suggested I try asking the city morgue, and that’s what I did,” said Ettienne’s sister, Jah’Aisha Ettienne, 30.

“That’s why I had to take it into my own hands and try to find a way to keep my mother calm. My mother, is lost, distraught,” She said. “It’s hard to [lose] your child.”

Ettienne had been “dealing with being on drugs and trying to get off drugs and not trying to have that around her kids. So she would, you know, go other places, yeah, but at that point, she was really trying to get herself better for her kids and her new grandchild,” her sister said.

Even though Ettienne sometimes fell off the radar, the family was still close.

“We’re a very close-knit family. So it’s extremely, extremely hard,” the sister said. “We [spoke] to her, but because she’ll be switching her numbers, it’s kind of hard to keep a hold [on] her, but we definitely [kept] in contact.”

“I [was] always worried for my sister,” she said. “She was a young, free spirited, loving, caring, like, smart, funny, the sweetest person you could ever meet.

”I honestly don’t even know the guy that she was with. That was probably literally a friend helping her out because she needed a place to sleep for the night. She didn’t have to [be there]. She could have just came back home.”