911 recordings reveal man reported blaze in Oak Lawn mobile home before death
One of the victims of a double fatal mobile home fire in Oak Lawn placed a 911 call to report the blaze and in doing so identified a suspect who has been charged with murder for allegedly setting it, according to audio recordings obtained by the Daily Southtown.
David D’Anna, who had spent the prior day celebrating his 47th birthday, called 911 at 12:43 a.m. June 8 to report that someone had tried to break into his trailer at the Airway Manufactured Housing Community of Oak Lawn and started a fire on his deck, according to the emergency communications.
“Some guy tried to get in my trailer, and now he lit something on fire on my deck,” D’Anna can be heard telling the dispatcher in the 911 recording. “I’m at 9001 South Cicero. His name’s Gerry Alonso.”
D’Anna spoke in a measured tone for the first 30 seconds of the call, explaining the emergency and relaying his address to the dispatcher, but the call became more urgent as the fire progressed, and the dispatcher struggled to understand what he was saying.
“Come on, give me a bucket, man,” D’Anna said at one point. “We gotta get this out.”
His last clearly audible words are, “Give me some water. The whole deck’s on fire.”
After that, only a shrill, muffled and distant voice can be heard intermittently screaming what sounds like “I need help,” “I can’t get out,” “I’m burning” and “I can’t get him to help me,” for the next minute or so, before it goes silent.
Around this time, a Hometown police officer driving westbound on 89th Street spotted the fire and radioed it in on his way to the scene. Once on scene, the officer relayed that someone was calling for help and saying they were trapped between the fence and the deck, which was fully engulfed in flames, according to an Oak Lawn police report.
That officer and an Oak Lawn officer, who by then had arrived on scene, attempted to pull down the fence but were unsuccessful, the report states.
After fire crews arrived and extinguished the blaze, they found D’Anna face down near what remained of the trailer’s deck, according to the report. He was already dead.
A second victim, later identified as Randy Chabala, 59, was found lying on a bed inside the trailer and was extricated through a bedroom window, the police report stated. He was still alive but in full cardiac arrest, Oak Lawn fire Chief George Sheets said.
Chabala was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and later transferred to Loyola University Medical Center’s Burn Center in Maywood, where he died later that afternoon, officials said.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled the deaths of both men homicides caused by thermal injuries from an incendiary fire.
Becky Schlikerman, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner, said sharp-force injuries were a contributing factor in D’Anna’s death but could not say where on the body those injuries occurred.
Oak Lawn police spokesman Randy Palmer said he did not believe either victim was stabbed and that he personally believed the injuries occurred when the victim was attempting to escape the fire.
Police charged Gerardo Alonso with two counts of first-degree murder on June 18, 10 days after the fire.
Alonso, identified by neighbors as a former resident, set the fatal fire after getting into an argument with D’Anna, prosecutors alleged.
A witness told police they heard Alonso banging on the door of the trailer that D’Anna and Chabala shared from around 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. that night, and then overheard an argument between Alonso and D’Anna, according to court documents.
Minutes after the argument, the witness told police they saw the trailer’s deck go up in flames, court documents stated.
Mary Grochola, who lives in the trailer next to the one the victims occupied, said she last saw D’Anna and Chabala sitting outside on the porch of their trailer with Alonso, when she passed by en route to the laundry room trailer about 8 p.m. on the night of the fire.
“They weren’t fighting or nothing,” Grochola said. “They were just sitting up there having a nice time.”
Another Airway resident told police he’d been partying with D’Anna, Chabala and Alonso from around 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. but left because of Alonzo’s behavior, a police report stated.
Another witness told police Alonso allegedly came to her trailer home around midnight looking to bum a cigarette. She gave him one, along with a lighter, but soon asked him to leave because he was “agitated” and his behavior made her feel uncomfortable, according to a police report.
Following the fire, officers found Alonso inside the trailer where his aunt and uncle live, police reports state. He denied having been at a party at D’Anna and Chabala’s trailer and said instead that he had spent part of the night drinking at a local bar with two strangers, according to the report.
“I had already informed Gerardo about the fire, however he asked no questions and made no mention about the fire, the party . . . nor did he inquire about the well-being of its residents,” an Oak Lawn officer wrote in his report after speaking with Alonso.
Police took Alonso into custody later that morning. According to prosecutors, he admitted to knocking on the doors and walls of D’Anna and Chabala’s trailer after being denied entrance. He also admitted to having the lighter he borrowed from the other trailer park resident, they said, although it’s not stated whether the lighter was used to set the fire.
Multiple Airway residents said they’d had trouble with Alonso over the years, according to police reports.
Four residents of the mobile home community, including D’Anna, have pressed charges against Alonso in the past five years.
In January 2015, D’Anna told police that Alonso broke his storm door window with a shovel, records show. That case, along with the other cases, was later dismissed after it appears D’Anna declined to proceed with the complaint.
Alonso is being held without bail at Cook County Jail and is due back in court July 13.
