Officials Release Video, Seek New Leads in Arson that Killed San Angelo Woman

SAN MARCOS, TX — Fire officials in San Marcos recently released surveillance video from the night of a 2018 arson that killed a San Angelo woman and critically injured a San Angelo man, hoping the footage will produce new leads. 

Haley Michele Frizzell, 19, of San Angelo, was one of five people killed in the July 20, 2018, fire at the Iconic Village Apartments, student housing north of Texas State University. Zachary Sutterfield, now 28, of San Angelo, suffered third-degree burns over nearly 70% of his body and a traumatic brain injury, according to the San Antonio Express-News. He was preparing to start classes at Texas State when the fire occurred. 

The video, recorded between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. from a quadplex across Ramsay Street, shows vehicles in a parking lot and others driving past before and after the complex became engulfed in flames. Investigators have identified the vehicles and are asking drivers and passengers to come forward. Those people are not considered suspects, Interim Fire Chief Jonathan Henderson said. A man seen entering the quadplex has also been identified and is not a suspect. 

Investigators have identified a person of interest but declined to give details.

“We are trying to cast as wide a net as we can,” Henderson said. “We need everyone who lived in San Marcos in 2018 to review the footage and share information they have about the vehicles they see. I’m not going to sugarcoat it — this is a big ask, but we can’t do it alone.”

The fire was ruled arson. Investigators determined someone deliberately ignited a discarded mattress in a first-floor breezeway. Also killed were Dru Estes, 20, of San Antonio; Belinda Moats, 21, of Big Wells; David Angel Ortiz, 21, of Pasadena; and James Phillip Miranda, 23, of Mount Pleasant. All five were in four second-floor apartments. Estes, Frizzell, and Ortiz were Texas State students; Moats was a former student. Seven people were injured. 

In 2023, investigators arrested Jacobe De Leon O Shea Ferguson, now 33, of Austin, and charged him with arson causing bodily injury or death, a first-degree felony. A Hays County grand jury declined to indict him, and the charge was dismissed. 

Officials are also seeking the owners of wireless networks in use near the complex that night. The department released 11 network names. Not all of the networks were necessarily at Iconic Village, 222 Ramsay St.; some may have belonged to nearby complexes. 

Anyone with information is asked to call the Iconic Village tip line at 512-393-7388. A $50,000 reward remains available for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Henderson urged anyone who was near Ramsay Street and North LBJ Drive between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. that morning to come forward. 

The video and network names are the first new leads investigators have publicly shared in years. Henderson said much was unknown in 2018 and that a task force has since gone through several iterations and gained more analyst support.

“We are going to do everything that we can — explore all possibilities, challenge all assumptions, take in all leads new and old,” he said. “I think this weighs heavily on the San Marcos community, on the families, on the people who survived. I know it weighs heavily on every member of the San Marcos Fire Department.”

Henderson became interim chief after Les Stephens retired Sept. 30. Stephens had joined the department in 2009. The city is searching for a permanent replacement.