BIDDEFORD, Maine — Biddeford police are still searching for the person or persons responsible for setting a fatal fire to an apartment building at 35 Main Street last week.
The fire killed resident Michael Joseph Moore, 23. Moore’s roommate, James Ford, 21, is still in critical condition at Maine Medical Center. Both men were carried out of the building by firefighters.
Moore’s sister, Tanya Dalbo, spoke out Monday against the person who set the fire. “Words can’t describe how you feel when you know somebody else vindictively did this to a whole house full of people,” she said.
Dalbo said whoever started this fire on 35 Main St. in Biddeford put the lives of all 28 tenants in danger. “Whoever this was cannot go free,” she said.
Many of the people who lived in the building were able to go inside Monday and collect some of their belongings. The entire building is now closed until city and state officials determine it is safe for people to move back.
“He was one of the good ones,” Dalbo said of her brother. “Him and James both. He wasn’t the rowdy kids that you see around here. He worked two jobs and he walked to both of those jobs to make ends meet.”
Dalbo says Ford was her brother’s best friend, and now she is praying for his survival. “If he walks out of the hospital, that would be a miracle,” she said.
Both young men suffered severe smoke inhalation and were given CPR on the scene. Moore died at the hospital Friday afternoon. Tanya Dalbo says her brother and Ford were polite, hard-working, and always willing to lend a hand.
“They would help anybody at any time,” Dablo said. “They were polite. Yes ma’ams, no ma’ams, yes sirs. And you don’t hear that around here. And it really sucks that these two amazing boys were such victims to a heinous, heinous crime.”