John Potter
Channel 2 News
Sitting in his Pleasant Valley home, Jim Blueberg sifted through pictures, missing his mom. "She liked to argue for fun. It was more fun to argue with her than it was to talk to her…she was a great gal. You know, she cared about her family and her kids and grandkids and...and she was a loving grandmother."
June Hargis, her dog, and her daughter's 3 prized horses were all killed in the Washoe Drive Fire. But even though Lyle Teuscher, the man who caused the blaze, has not called to apologize…Jim sees no point in prosecuting him. "In a way I feel for the guy, you know? He came forward and I don't...you know, what are you going to do to an 85-year old man? What do you want to do to him, you know? He's not going to go out and start another fire tomorrow."
He also says his mom had opportunity to escape, when she was called by his nephew and told to leave. "And I can't for the life of me imagine why she didn't walk out of there. It wasn't like she was disabled. You know she could have walked out of there."
The January 19th fire burned through Pleasant Valley and destroyed 29 homes, with almost 5 million dollars in property damage. The fire was over 3 months ago, but the topic came up last week when fire investigators said the man who did leave out his ashes was at fault for starting the fire.
At his office in downtown Reno, Washoe County District Attorney Dick Gammick told us, "Victims, although we do listen to them and we hear what they have to say, do not drive these cases. These decisions are made by us."
The D.A. says the decision to prosecute, or not, will depend on facts, period...on what he sees now as a death investigation. As he told us, "That's my whole focus. We have a 93-year old lady here who burned to death in her bed. I'm not really interested in what anybody else has to tell me about their opinions of that. I don't take it well. This is a death investigation. True, it's the fire too, but that's secondary to me."
But Jim says his mom...the woman who went by the name "grandma," would see it another way. Jim says Teuscher "made a terrible mistake, but it isn't like he did this on purpose. And I'm sure he's suffering dearly from it."
As for a timetable on a decision on charges from the district attorney's office, Gammick said it will take some time for his office to review separate reports by fire investigators and the Washoe County Sheriff's.
