A woman accused of torching a South Bay group home last spring could face a homicide charge in connection with the eventual death of a fellow resident gravely injured by the blaze, authorities announced Tuesday.
Glenda Coronado, 47, is accused of intentionally setting fire to her room in the supervised-living residence in the 2200 block of Donax Avenue in the Palm City district of San Diego.
At the time, Coronado — who was on probation for vandalism — was angry at an employee at the facility, according to prosecutors. She currently is undergoing treatment at a psychiatric hospital.
While working to extinguish the flames spreading through the small assisted-living home near the south end of San Diego Harbor late on the morning of March 31, firefighters found another resident, 63-year-old Joseph Garza, unconscious in bed in his smoke-filled room, SDPD Lt. Mike Holden said.
Medics took the disabled victim to a hospital, where physicians put him in a medically induced coma due to the severity of the respiratory trauma he had suffered in the fire.
Two police officers who forced entry to the home to look for victims went to an emergency room on their own, also for evaluation of smoke inhalation.
Garza died Sept. 8. The county Medical Examiner’s Office subsequently determined that smoke inhalation had contributed to his death and ruled it a homicide.
Coronado has been charged with arson and an allegation of causing great bodily injury in connection with the March fire and another one that had damaged the same group home two months earlier.
Last fall, a judge ruled that Coronado was mentally unfit to stand trial in the case. She was sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County for up to three years of treatment or until she is determined to be capable of assisting in her own legal defense.
If Coronado is deemed competent, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office will decide whether to file additional charges against her in light of Garza’s death and the associated homicide ruling, Holden said
–City News Service
