Tyaisha Leary listened helplessly as her 10-year-old son, Michael Miles, yelled for her from his bedroom while fire engulfed their West Scranton home.
"Mommy!"
Ms. Leary opened her bedroom door, but the heat forced her back.
"I couldn't see anything," she testified at her ex-boyfriend's murder-arson trial in Lackawanna County Court on Tuesday. She "screamed for him" to come to her.
The only answer was smoke and flames.
Dabbing her eyes with a tissue, Ms. Leary relived the deaths of her two sons, Michael and 9-year-old Taevon Miles, when she took the stand for the prosecution against William Robert Woods.
Mr. Woods, 43, of Scranton, is accused of setting fire to Ms. Leary's 166 S. Hyde Park Ave. home on July 21, 2009.
As smoke filled her bedroom, she thought her two other sons made it out a window onto the roof.
When she pulled herself through a window, only 12-year-old Nijea Miles was outside.
"My babies are in there! Please get them!" she yelled to Scranton fire and police responders as they arrived.
Rescuers rushed inside and carried Michael out. He died hours later. Taevon was found dead in Ms. Leary's bedroom.
Wearing a short sleeve, black knitted shirt and black pants, Ms. Leary started sobbing uncontrollably when she spoke about seeing Michael and Taevon carted out on stretchers and placed in ambulances, then days later, making funeral arrangements.
District Attorney Andy Jarbola urged her to rest.
"Take a minute, please," Mr. Jarbola said. Lackawanna County President Judge Thomas J. Munley, who is presiding over the nonjury trial, called for a 10-minute recess.
As Ms. Leary left the stand to collect herself in the judge's chambers, Mr. Woods sat alone at the defense table.
He wiped away tears with his hands, as two county sheriff's deputies stood watch.
He scribbled a note on a white legal pad, went to hand it to a sheriff's deputy, then decided to place the note back on the defense table.
He then held his hands in his lap, staring straight ahead.
Outside the courtroom, Ms. Leary revealed two tattoos of her sons on her upper arms.
"They're always with me," she said. "Every day."
Investigators believe Mr. Woods used lighter fluid to ignite the blaze, Mr. Jarbola said.
Her relationship with Mr. Woods began collapsing in the weeks leading up to the fire, according to court testimony.
She got a protection-from-abuse order against him after he slashed her car tires and cut the cords of her kitchen appliances, according to court testimony. He also charged at her with a knife.
Acquaintances of Mr. Woods also testified Tuesday, telling how Mr. Woods told them he wanted to set her home on fire.
"I can't live there. My girlfriend can't live there either," Gary Tyminski of Scranton recalled Mr. Woods telling him over the phone before the fire.
After Mr. Tyminski saw the fire on the news, he relayed their conversation to city police, he testified.
Another acquaintance, Bryon Mulno, recalled taking a walk with Mr. Woods in the neighborhood of Ms. Leary's home before the fire.
According to Mr. Mulno, Mr. Woods said he wanted to throw a rock through her window and "burn the (expletive) house down."
Ms. Leary testified Mr. Woods told her he wanted to set her home on fire.
In the arms of a rescuer on the night of the fire, Ms. Leary told him she knew who was responsible, she testified.
"I know who did this. It was William Robert Woods," she testified.
Tuesday was the second day of testimony. The trial is expected to last all week.
Testimony continues this afternoon.
If convicted, Mr. Woods faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Copyright 2012 - The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
