Harrowing Details Emerge

(Updated) She was already scared of her mother’s boyfriend for allegedly fondling her. Now, she said, she awoke to find him pouring liquid on her head and lighting matches.

She struggled with him, twice, to break free.

A 12-year-old girl, who saved her baby sister’s life and barely escaped death herself, told that story to police.

Her story emerged in detail Monday afternoon as the court file became public in the tragedy that occurred Sunday morning on Market Street in Fair Haven.

The file became public as Howard Stewart, who’s 50, appeared in Superior Court on Elm Street Monday. (He’s pictured above conferring with his public defender, Renee Cimino.) He was arraigned on charges that he lit his girlfriend on fire; doused his girlfriend’s 12-year-old daughter with an accelerant and tried to light her on fire; then lit their house on fire.

The baby, who turns 3 months old on Thursday, was also in the family’s apartment and was rescued, unharmed. (Contrary to other media reports, the baby was never doused.)

Judge Roland Fasano increased Stewart’s bond from $1 million to $2 million. He ordered him segregated from other prisoners. He placed Stewart on a mental health watch. He issued two protective orders requiring Stewart to stay away from the family, should he be released at some point. Fasano then transferred the case to Part A of Superior Court on Church Street, where Stewart has a Nov. 24 court date.

Stewart and his girlfriend got into an argument Saturday night, after which he left their apartment on Market Street near the corner of Monroe Street in Fair Haven. He returned early Sunday morning. The argument resumed. Then came the alleged attacks and the fire. (Click here for background on that.)

Stewart did not enter a plea Monday. He told police he and his girlfriend had had long-running arguments about allegations that he inappropriately touched the daughter, as well as about “bills backing up,” according to one of the police reports on file.

“Things just went too far this time,” Stewart is quoted telling Officer Robert Levy.

12-year-old Hero

They certainly altered the life — and almost ended the life — of a 12-year-old girl.

The girl lived on the second and third floors of the house on Market Street with her 3-month-old sister, her mother, and her mother’s boyfriend, Howard Stewart. Stewart is the father of the baby. He is not the father of the 12-year-old girl.

According to the police reports, Stewart doused his girlfriend, who’s 35, with an accelerant, then lit her on fire during their argument. The girlfriend ran downstairs to the house’s first-floor tenants for help. She was burned from “her chest and down to her legs.” Though in “severe pain,” she was able to tell the cops who burned her, before she was transported to the burn unit at Bridgeport Hospital. (She remains in critical condition there as of late Monday afternoon.)

The police also interviewed the 12-year-old daughter.

Here’s what she told them, according to the report: Her “mother’s boyfriend did this to them. She stated that last night she told her mother that Howard Stewart had been touching her on her private parts and was scared of him and wanted him to stop.

“[She] then said that her mother … and Howard Stewart got into an argument. That Howard was yelling ‘you believe her.’ [She] said that her mother wanted to wait till Monday to go to the police department to report the incident. [She] said that they argued for a while and that around midnight Howard left the apartment. [She] then said that she went to bed with her mother on the third floor because she felt afraid.

“This morning [Sunday, she] said she woke up because she felt liquid being poured on her head and when she opened her eyes saw Howard striking matches and tossing them toward her. [She] said that when she ran down the stairs to the second floor she noticed the fire [that had broken out in the house] and stopped.

“She said this was when Howard grabbed her, dragged her back upstairs and threw her back on the bed. Howard poured more liquid on her then ran down the front stairs. [She] said that by then she could see the fire coming up the rear stairs and was about to run down the front stairs when she saw that her baby sister … was still asleep on the bed.

“[She] said that she grabbed her sister and ran down to the first floor where she then found her mother and saw that she was naked and that she was burned. [She] said that the first floor tenants were on the phone with ‘911.’ [She] told them that the second floor was on fire and they left the building.”

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