Somers- Structure Fire- 11/15/76

[RES20CUE 40]

Date: 11/15/1976

Times: Alarm- 0153hrs Cleared- 0530hrs

Location: Griffen Place, Shenorock

Frequency: 46.26

Units Operating: Somers Units: Cars-2441, 2442, 2443; Engines- 180, 181, 182, 183, 184; Ladder 18; Rescue 20; Ambulances- 11, 12. Yorktown: 1 Engine, Mahopac: 1 Ambulance.

Description Of Incident: Upon arrival- Heavy Fire from a wood frame, single family, occupied residential dwelling. Triple Fatality.

This was the deadliest fire to ever strike the Town of Somers, and to this day still effects some of our brothers who operated there.

Loretta Clement, a 42 year old depressed housewife, set her house on fire with her 3 children still inside asleep. All three children, 2 boys and a girl, ranging in ages from 4 to 9, perished in the fire, several rescue attempts by neighbors and firefighters were unsuccessful. 45 firefighters from Somers, 10 from Yorktown and 3 from Mahopac responded.

Loretta Clement was sentenced on 11/2/1977 on 2 counts of 2nd Degree Murder 1 count of 2nd Degree Manslaughter; she is still incarcerated at Taconic Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, serving 20 years to Life.

On the 28th anniversary of this fire, I would like to keep in memory the 3 Clement children, as well as the 58 Firefighters who responded that fateful night, all who returned a changed man!

[x635 4,066]

Interesting "classic" IA. Sad and tragic though.

[TR54 239]

Very Tragic -- The most difficult conditions --when children are involved.

[DOC22 1]

Reminds me of our triple fatal. Mom and two kids , on Daisy Lane I forget the year But I think it was New Years Eve 1986, the mom had gotten out but went back to find the kids, and all three died. Mom was by a window , but we didn;t find the kids until the fire had been extinguished for a while. I found the first one right under my feet we had actually been walking all over them during supression ops and never knew it. It was really bad since I knew the family, so I fully understand the long term feelings of all involved with the Somers Fire.

[Guest DADAY]

I remember that one doc, i was young but do remember

[x635 4,066]

Loretta Clement, a 42 year old depressed housewife, set her house on fire with her 3 children still inside asleep.  All three children, 2 boys and a girl, ranging in ages from 4 to 9, perished in the fire, several rescue attempts by neighbors and firefighters were unsuccessful.  45 firefighters from Somers, 10 from Yorktown and 3 from Mahopac responded.

Loretta Clement was sentenced on 11/2/1977 on 2 counts of 2nd Degree Murder 1 count of 2nd Degree Manslaughter; she is still incarcerated at Taconic Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, serving 20 years to Life.  

On the 28th anniversary of this fire, I would like to keep in memory the 3 Clement children, as well as the 58 Firefighters who responded that fateful night, all who returned a changed man!

From Today's Journal News:

Mom who killed her kids not freed from her past

By PHIL REISMAN

THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: December 19, 2004)  

Loretta Clement, a former Somers homemaker who was branded a "modern-day Medea" for setting a 1976 fire that killed her three children and whose applications for parole were repeatedly denied, was quietly freed from prison last week and deported to her native Scotland.  

Sentenced to 20 years to life, Clement had served a full 27 years behind bars when she was released Thursday from the Taconic Correctional Facility and shipped out of the country on a trans-Atlantic jet. Clement's attorney, Jerome Lawton, waited until Friday to announce the news.  

"Frankly, I did not want this to become a media event," Lawton told me. "My interest was in having her leave America and starting a new life without flak being thrown at her."  

Lawton contacted me because I had advocated Clement's release a month or so before she was to appear at a parole hearing in 2002. Her request was denied then — as it had been four times previously — but my column supporting her plea for freedom predictably generated a great deal of angry reader mail, the gist of which was that I was fronting for a repugnant child killer who was irredeemable and deserved nothing better than to rot in jail.  

Lawton's caution was understandable. For many, this latest turn of events in the strange, tragic life of Loretta Clement will hardly be a cause for celebration.  

Nearly three decades ago, Clement was, in truth, a desperate housewife. She had a husband, three kids, ages 4 to 9, and a typical split-level house on a quiet suburban road in Somers.  

But her marriage was falling apart. Mentally, she was breaking down under the stress. She was overwhelmed by fears, not the least of which, ironically, was the possibility of losing custody of her children.  

Clement told me all this when I visited her in prison a couple of years ago. She was 68 years old then, white-haired, diminutive and pale to the point of being almost invisible.  

"My illusions were mixing in with reality," she said. "I felt something was going to happen. I didn't know what it was. I just felt there was something, and I couldn't stop it."  

She set the house on fire in the early morning of Nov. 14, 1976, while her children slept. The details of Clement's crime can be found on microfilm, but none of the newspaper accounts explained why she did it. Clement could never quite explain it either, only that she loved her children and that the fire was some kind of cry for help, however twisted.  

"It wasn't something that could say that you aren't to blame," she said in a near whisper during the 2002 interview. "It's an act that you performed that you never realized what the consequences would be."  

She was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree manslaughter.  

I argued that Clement had served her time and was no threat to society, especially since release meant immediate deportation. If anything, her continued incarceration (and care for a heart condition) was a costly burden to society.  

Clement's case was originally brought to my attention by Bill Baker, owner of the Baker Companies, a Pleasantville-based development firm. He took up her cause as a promise to his wife, Lucy, who got to know Clement through a prison ministries program. Lucy Baker died in 1996.  

Lawton, who is "of counsel" for the Manhattan law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, took on the case pro bono after a priest and mutual friend of Baker's asked him for legal assistance. As it happened, Lawton had already read my column about Clement and privately wondered what he could do to help.  

So for the past year and a half, he worked on an exhaustive application to set her free.  

"I felt it was a terrible injustice," he said. "I felt she had served her sentence, had rehabilitated herself and that she should not die in prison."  

Clement had furthered her education while in prison. She taught art to the other women inmates. Many letters of commendation were written on her behalf.  

Lawton argued that she had fulfilled the legal requirements of rehabilitation and in September the parole board agreed, granting her a "conditional parole for deportation only."  

Lawton, himself a parent, said he could understand why people would be upset with Clement's release. But he said that, after getting to know her and working "hundreds and hundreds of hours" on her case, he firmly believed she never intended to hurt her children.  

"So, as a father, I can tell you and, as a father, you can understand that people deserve to be punished if they do something wrong and to be released when that punishment is over with," he said. "And that's what the system should do."  

Loretta Clement tried to kill herself a few times when she was in prison. She cried many nights. If you met her today, you would think she was addled and much older than 70.  

She is free, if that's the right word for someone who will be chained to ghosts for the rest of her days.  

Clement's attorney, Jerome Lawton, waited until Friday to announce the news.  

"Frankly, I did not want this to become a media event," Lawton told me. "My interest was in having her leave America and starting a new life without flak being thrown at her."

Not like her kids can start a new life.

[Pudge3311 5]

x635,

agree with you that the kids cant start a new life, but I think our taxes are high enough, we can afford to ship her back home and not have to pay for all of her medical bills and incarceration for another 20 years.

[x635 4,066]

Here's the article afformentioned from 2002:

:roll: :roll: :roll:

I just don't understand? WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE FEELING BAD FOR HER??????

Time for state to set free child killer free  

By PHIL REISMAN

(Original publication: August 15, 2002)  

Sometime in September, Loretta Clement, a former Somers housewife who has spent the last 25 years of her life in prison, will go before a state parole board and ask to be set free.  

By all appearances, this should be a slam dunk, but nothing is simple when the crime in question involves the death of children.  

Clement is 68 years old, which is ancient by state prison standards when you consider that only 11 of the 3,077 women behind bars are over the age of 65. Jails are not built to be nursing homes.  

Clement appears frail. She is tiny and round and has a heart condition. Her small stature, shy demeanor and ghostly prison pallor combine to make her all but invisible — a useful trait for survival. I found this out when I failed to notice her presence at arm's length away and inadvertently walked past her during an authorized visit to the Taconic Correctional Facility, a women's lockup that is smaller and less well-known than its next door neighbor, the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.  

I shook her little hand, which was like clasping a down pillow.  

Clement is hardly a threat to society, but after serving the minimum 20 years of a 20-to-life sentence, she has been denied parole four times. Why? Undoubtedly, the answer lies in the nature of her crime. Less obvious perhaps is the reluctance of a timid parole system to veer from zero-tolerance policies set in the Pataki era that make it especially tough for violent offenders to get released — no matter who they are and how harmless they may be.  

By her own description, Loretta Clement had been a "squaresville housewife." She had a husband, three children and a split-level house on Griffin Place in Somers. But there was deep, deep trouble.  

To say that her marriage was going badly would be a sorry understatement. There was abuse.  

"It wasn't so much the physical, I think it was more mental abuse," she told me in a noticeable accent that betrays her Scottish origins. "In the days I was married, it wasn't the in thing to talk about the problems you were having in your marriage.  

"I think sometimes a relationship goes bad, and I really don't like to knock him because I don't think he was a bad person. I just feel that circumstances and everything else were beyond us."  

Divorce came as a shock to her. Her world began to unravel, seemingly overnight. She was breaking down with no one to help her. Hospitalization was ruled out because it meant that she would lose custody of the children, two boys and a girl whose ages ranged from 4 to 9.  

"My illusions were mixing in with reality," Clement recalled. "I felt something was going to happen. I didn't know what it was. I just felt there was something, and I couldn't stop it."  

Her world and the lives of her children came to an end shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 14, 1976, when she set the house on fire. Minutes after the blaze was set, she attempted to rescue her children, but the flames were too hot, she couldn't breathe from the smoke and there wasn't a ladder tall enough to reach a window. It was too late.  

Looking back, she believes she committed the crime as a cry for help, to get attention, to get her husband back. But if you ask Loretta Clement about that tragic fire, mostly what you get in reply is a choking back of tears and a silent nod of what must be an unbearably painful admission of guilt.  

"It wasn't something that you could say that you aren't to blame," she managed between deep sighs. "It's an act that you performed that you never realized what the consequences would be."  

She was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree manslaughter. She wasn't allowed to attend her children's funeral. She contemplated suicide and tried it a few times.  

Sitting in jail, she would "cry and cry and cry — and one day I felt as if I'd cried the whole Atlantic Ocean."  

Eventually, she pulled herself together. She read, studied and earned several degrees while in prison. She became senior law clerk in the prison library.  

Along the way, she gained the legal help of Bronxville attorney Bennett Goodman and a number of supporters. One of those was Lucy Baker, a Chappaqua resident who befriended Clement through a prison ministries program. She visited Clement once a week for more than a decade.  

When Baker died in 1996, her husband, Bill Baker, owner of the Baker Companies, a Pleasantville-based development firm, took up the cause.  

Clement's incarceration costs the state $33,845 a year. This is a waste of money, considering her age, her rehabilitative accomplishments and frailty. What's more, if she's released Clement will be deported back to Great Britain.  

Baker said yesterday it's a "travesty" to keep her behind bars. "It seems to me she served her time," he said.  

Now, it's time to let her go.  

 

 

 

 

[Guest WolfEMT]

It's bad enough when you kill someone, but it's worse when you kill a child. Worse yet, is when you kill your own child. Yes, she may have been mentally unstable, but that does not excuse her murdering her children. Feeling sorry for her is just the reaction she wants out of all who read about her; it's all about her and not about her children. Many people get depressed throughout their lives, but there are always ways of coping with that depression, like counseling. Maybe if she would have done the intelligent thing when she first became depressed, her children might still be alive today. She's a child killer and deserves no sympathy.

[DOC22 1]

She killed kids. She deserves nothing less than the death penalty PERIOD!!!!!!!!!

[RES20CUE 40]

I couldn't even finish reading it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Believe me- Mr, Reisman is going to be hearing from me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't get me started...

Unfourtunitly- Most of the converstations at the Firehouse on Sunday was about this.... The ones that were effected, are NOT HAPPY, at all...

She deserves to rot in Hell, for not only killing her own kids, but the devestation that the Town of Somers felt, and especially the Chiefs, Officers, Members and Family members of the SVFD- who still suffer to this day... When does our release come???????????