MERIDIAN — It's been one year since a disturbing home invasion and massive house fire took three lives in Meridian.
The horrific series of events unfolded at a home on West Amity Road and Linder Road the night of September 27, 2017. Two people who lived there and the suspected prowler died.
In the following days and weeks, more information came to light. But a year later there are still a lot of lingering questions about what happened that night.
Around 10:30 the night of September 27, 2017 a woman called 911, fearful as someone with a gun was pounding on her door, trying to get in. As law enforcement showed up, they say the suspected prowler got inside the house. Deputies yelled at him to drop his gun, but they say he refused.
"At that time, there were multiple gunshots, rounds, that were fired," Ada County Sheriff Steve Bartlett said in a press conference the day after the incident.
Two deputies shot at the suspect and he disappeared back inside. At the time, it wasn't clear if deputies' rounds hit the suspect or if he fired his weapon, the sheriff said. It still isn’t clear to KTVB today.
Soon after shots were fired, flames engulfed the home.
“It was a matter of just minutes when the entire home was burning,” Sheriff Bartlett said.
“It was all the sudden, just look at the plume of smoke. But that house just blew up,” neighbor Sharon Taylor told KTVB two days after the fire. "Lit up the sky pretty good."
Two people died in the burning home: suspected invader, Pavel Florea, and 84-year-old Carmen Abbott who lived there with her son, Scott McAlister, and his wife, Lily.
The McAlisters were able to escape thanks to law enforcement. But Scott - who was terminally ill - was badly burned and family told KTVB he died at a hospital in Salt Lake City the next day.
"This is something out of a crime show. You never think this is going to happen to your family," Lily and Scott’s niece Patrice McAlister told KTVB a few days after the incident.
Questions remain surrounding the motive for the break-in, with the sheriff saying he didn’t believe there was a connection between Florea and the McAlisters in the press conference.
"It's why this house? What was going through your head?" Patrice said last year.
We've asked, but still don't know how the fire broke out.
"We do know that we located a significant amount of gasoline here on the scene, but as to the igniter, the source of the fire and what caused that - we'll leave that to the state fire marshal and their investigation cause-and-origin team to determine that," Sheriff Bartlett told us in the presser.
An Ada County Sheriff's Office spokesman told KTVB on Friday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigated the incident, and that report is complete.
Also still unclear to us is whether officers Sage Hickam and Chris Matkin killed Florea in the gun battle. The Boise Police Department led the critical incident task force (CITF) that looked into the officer-involved shooting. A spokeswoman for BPD told us their investigation was complete and was sent to the Twin Falls County prosecutor for review.
Twin Falls County Prosecuting Attorney Grant Loebs says he received autopsy results last week, meaning the file just became complete. He will review it to determine whether officers did anything improper or illegal.
The Ada County Sheriff's Office and Boise Police say they can't discuss anything until those findings are released.
A year ago, Bartlett said piecing together evidence was "complex":
"As you can imagine this crime scene is very large. This is a scene we've got to take our time with and make sure every piece of evidence is overturned so the right thing happens and we're able to see this case through.”
Loebs says he hopes to release his findings soon, so we will continue to stay on top of the latest developments. We also spoke with the McAlister family's pastor to see how Lily is doing; Legacy Church Pastor Ralph Lowe said she moved back East and is spending time with her family and kids, recovering and doing well.