On Aug. 3, 2022, a fire broke out overnight at 3 Spring Lane in Noyac, where the Wiener family of Potomac, Md., had been vacationing. Three members of the family escaped with injuries, but two of them -- Jillian Wiener, 21, and Lindsay Wiener, 19 -- were trapped on the second floor, and ultimately died of injuries sustained in the fire.
Just over two years later the owners of the home have admitted they rented the house illegally, built an outdoor kitchen with neither a construction permit nor an electrical inspection, and failed to make sure smoke and carbon monoxide alarms were working throughout the house.
Peter Miller, 56, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminally negligent homicide, a felony, before Acting Supreme Court Justice Richard I. Horowitz in Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverside on Monday. His wife, Pamela Miller, 55, pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor.
They faced a total of 29 code violations, which were prosecuted by Southampton Town Justice Court. The Millers surrendered themselves for arrest last Thursday at the office of Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
"First and foremost, our hearts go out to the Wiener family, who lost these young women in this tragic fire. Such a loss is unimaginable, and our community mourns with them," Mr. Tierney said in a statement. "We take all matters involving housing regulations very seriously, as they are crucial for public safety. If you have a rental home, you have a duty to make sure that it is safe."
According to Mr. Tierney, on the evening of Aug. 2, 2022, the Wiener family set out to cook dinner on a charcoal grill in the outdoor kitchen attached to the house. "When the food did not cook, the family removed the food from the grill, closed the lid, and cooked the food in the indoor kitchen."
They later told investigators they went to sleep at about 11:30 p.m. Approximately four hours later, the mother and father "woke up to the sound of glass shattering," Mr. Tierney said. "When they left their bedroom to investigate, they saw fire in the kitchen and screamed for their children to get out of the house."
The father re-entered the house to locate the children but was soon forced out of the house by the blaze; he suffered burns on his feet. Their son escaped the house by jumping from a second-story window; he too sustained burns.
The surviving family members and firefighters who responded to the scene told investigators that "no fire alarms were heard at any point," according to Mr. Tierney.
The outdoor kitchen, investigators said, "was mostly made of wood with low-hanging wood ceilings that sat above the charcoal grill and gas stove. The bottom grill vents of the charcoal grill were completely blocked by an attached counter, and the electrical circuits that the outdoor kitchen shared with the indoor kitchen were overloaded and improperly wired."
The Millers are due back in court on Nov. 7. They are being represented by Edward Burke Jr., who could not immediately be reached for comment Monday afternoon.
The Wiener family also has a civil suit making its way through the courts. The civil suit originally targeted Homeaway.com and VRBO Holdings, the websites that the Millers used to rent the house to visitors. A federal judge dismissed the claims against VRBO and Homeaway in September 2023. Andres Alonso, an attorney representing the Wieners in the civil case, could not be reached for comment on Monday.