school classmates of two of the dead children and a Fire Department honor guard of about two dozen firefighters, dressed in formal black uniforms. In all, the caskets at the funeral Mass contained the remains of 11, including three mothers (two of them pregnant), two fetuses and six children. The two fetuses were placed with their mothers in the caskets. A 15-month-old child of Guatemalan parents was buried earlier in Calvary Cemetery. The other remains were returned to Mexico and Guatemala. In 1998, prosecutors filed charges against two men in the crime, alleging they were members of the 18th Street Gang who were attempting to intimidate an apartment manager who had tried to drive away drug dealers from the place. The charges were dropped after two years for lack of evidence. In February 2017, police arrested "multiple people" in connection with the arson. Joseph Monge, 44, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in February 2020 and was to be sentenced to 11 years in prison. Others under arrest and facing trial were Johanna Lopez and Ramiro "Greedy" Valerio. McKinley House, 1994. After years of neglect and controversy, this boarded-up historic monument at Third Street and LaFayette Park Place finally succumbed when flames took the remains of what had been an elegant Italian Renaissance-style home overlooking Rampart Boulevard. Two transients were found dead when firemen were able to inspect the ruins. The 20-room house was built in 1915 by an Ohio millionaire who lived in it during the winter. Other families had it, too, until mortuary owner Maytor McKinley bought it in 1945. He died in 1970, and his widow, Vari Komp McKinley, lived there until her death in the mid-1980s. In 1987 developers purchased it with the intent of raising a 118-unit apartment complex on it. At the prodding of the Los Angeles Conservancy, the city declared it to be a cultural-historic monument. Rod and Sherry Daniels, intrigued by the idea of owning the beautiful old structure, bought it for $1 with the intention of moving it to Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley. Over six years those plans stagnated and the property kept deteriorating until the 1994 blaze put an end to the Daniels' dream and the house as a historic structure. Neighborhood residents launched a drive to turn the rubble-strewn lot into a neighborhood park; today the site is home to a privately owned school called the Lafayette Park