It was the most heinous crime the small town of Greece, New York had ever seen.
On November 26th, 1978 a massive fire engulfed the town’s Holiday Inn hotel. The hotel was full with nearly 200 guests staying the night. The police chief at the time, Gerald Phelan, was called to the scene.
“The sky was lit up,” he told 16:9 The Bigger Picture. “It was bright and I knew we had a very major fire going on. And then of course as I got closer I could see the flames shooting up. When I got there the building was pretty much engulfed in flames.”
The flames travelled fast – up the stairwell and through the roof of the building. Panicked guests, screaming, tried desperately to escape. But even in the chaos and confusion, as 16:9’s exclusive investigation has uncovered, something about this fire didn’t sit right with officials on the scene.
“One of my detectives said to me, “˜This thing seems to be starting too fast, moving too fast,’” Phelan told 16:9, recounting the events of the day. “I said, “˜Yeah, I agree with you.’ That was probably our first inkling of a suspicious fire.”
Two hundred guests’ lives were at stake. Not everyone was lucky enough to make it out alive. The blaze claimed ten lives. Seven of them were Canadian.
Thirty-three year old mother of three Huguette Sundue from Toronto, Ontario was one of the victims. She, her sister-in-law and her mother-in-law had gone to Greece to shop at the local mall. All three died of smoke inhalation.
Huguette’s children told 16:9 they feel the pain of her loss to this day. Brian Sundue is her oldest child. He said he, his two sisters and his father were getting ready to go pick their mother up in downtown Toronto when his father got the terrible phone call.
“It was just like a bomb went off,” Brian told 16:9. “My world collapsed. And then we cried for awhile and my dad went downstairs and told my sisters what had happened.”
More than 30 years later, Brian still struggles – not knowing who started the blaze that killed his mother, aunt and grandmother.
“This was a crime,” he told 16:9. “I mean to grow up as a young man thinking that, knowing that your mother was murdered – that your grandmother was essentially murdered. It wouldn’t restore things but I think it would help to have some answers.”
16:9 went in search of those answers, starting at the police station in Greece, NY. The current police chief, Todd Baxter told 16:9 the case is still open since, officially, homicide investigations never close.
Over three decades, investigators on the case have come and gone. But one name, Baxter said, reamins the same.
“There were definitely people of interest,” he told 16:9. “There were one or two that were named in the investigation…. I’d rather not pinpoint those people but some of these people are still of interest today. We’re going to go back and take another look at [them]. We’d be foolish if we didn’t.”
16:9 also caught up with the main “person of interest” in Greece to ask him about the events on the night of November 26th, 1978. That visit, along with 16:9’s visit to officials in Greece, has reignited interest in a case gone cold. Suddenly, more than thirty years after Huguette Sundue died, her children have reason to hope they might finally be a step closer to finding out who killed their mother.
Watch 16:9 on Saturday, May 7th for 16:9’s full investigation – including first hand accounts of the night the fire started and the shocking identity of the man whose name police and fire officials still connect to the deadly blaze.
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