A former gang member was found guilty of 12 counts of murder Tuesday for his role in setting a 1993 fire in a crowded apartment building in Westlake at the center of the neighborhood’s unchecked drug trade.Ramiro Valerio, 49, bowed his head as the clerk read the verdict. Because the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder with several special circumstances, he must be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
At the time, prosecutors said, Westlake was “the crack cocaine capital of Los Angeles,” and Valerio’s gang, the Columbia Lil Cycos clique of 18th Street, controlled Burlington Avenue, a lucrative drug corridor that ran through the heart of their territory. Around 4:30 p.m. on May 3, 1993, smoke began to billow out of the 67-unit building. Residents jumped out of balconies to escape the smoke that was engulfing the third floor. Ten died of smoke inhalation: Lancey Mateo, 1, Alejandrina Roblero, 29, Yadira Verdugo, 6, Leyver Verdugo, 10, William Verdugo, 8, Rosalia Camargo, 6, Jesus Camargo, 4, Jose Camargo, 4, Olga Leon, 24, and Rosalia Ruiz, 21. Leon and Ruiz were pregnant.
The Los Angeles Police Department, however, was eyeing Valerio as a suspect in the fire. Interviewed by detectives several times over the decades, he consistently denied having anything to do with it.