Colorado Springs – A man charged with first-degree murder in the Castle West Apartments fire had earlier threatened to blow up the building, according to a police affidavit obtained by 9News.
Gene Johnson, 36, and his cousin, Derrick Nicholas Johnson, 23, have been arrested in connection with the fire and charged with first-degree murder. Two men died in the January blaze.
In the affidavit, a friend of Derrick Johnson’s ex-girlfriend, Najua Bell- Jackson, says that the night before the fire and the morning of the fire, Bell-Jackson received “numerous telephone calls and text messages from her former boyfriend and the father of her baby.”
Stephanie Dorman told police Derrick Johnson had threatened to kill Bell-Jackson and her baby and “further made threats to ‘blow up’ the apartments.”
