It was March of 2001, and I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was dark out by then and I was about nine years old at the time. I looked out my front window of my house and saw smoke, next thing I know there is firefighters from Westlake fire department trying to put the blaze out. This was the house of Stephen Treiber, he lived about a block down the road. When we first moved in here, came into my families household to fix the plumbing and we believed he was pretty weird then. He had two daughters; Kaitlyn who was right around my age and we played together all the time. His other girl Jessica, who was two years old when this incident happened and was murdered in the fire.
The house was a total blaze, Stephen Treiber came out alone...without his daughter Jessica or either of his dogs. He said that the fire must have been someone setting him up, a note came out of no where made of letters from newspapers and magazines asking for ransom. As forensics went over the evidence a little hair came up in the glue, from Treiber's dog. This man had many other things on him as well, his suspected arson of his parents house that is right across the road of his own home before it was burnt down. He had also set many fires as a young boy in the re veins.
This man was eventually sentenced with the death penalty and held responsible for the death of his two year old daughter. He did ask to have it looked at again and have a retrial because the first one was not fair. The judge did overlook it and is still considering the options to this day. This man who we believed was a good person, let into our own house, and I was in his as well; killed a poor innocent child to not pay child support of 250$ a month. We can only be happy that a man like him is off of the street, and no longer able to do something like this ever again.
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