SAN ANTONIO – A community is getting closure after finding out their former neighbor will spend 100 years in prison. Miranda Herrera, 19, was sentenced on Friday for setting a fire at her own house, which killed her brother and injured her father. Neighbors said even though the fire was almost three years ago, they still remember every detail of that day.
It was December 19, 2013, when Castle Pine Drive, a quiet Northeast Side neighborhood, was awakened by smoke, flames and panic.
"Everything happened so fast. One minute you just tell them good night and I love you, then your house is on fire," Miranda Herrera said on camera to a KSAT crew the night of the fire. She gave a full interview that night about the tragic fire at her house that killed her 22-year-old autistic older brother, and critically injured her father.
"I saw my brother getting dragged out of there I freaked out, I was already freaking out from the beginning. I couldn't even speak," she said, looking into the camera.
The next time Miranda Herrera showed up on KSAT, she was in handcuffs, charged with starting that fire.
"Then when we find out who did it, oh my God. Nobody can believe it, and why?" said Colleen Ogle, whose son lives two doors down from Herrera's house.
She was shocked when Herrera admitted to police she set the fire in hopes of collecting life insurance money.
"Family!" Ogle said. "You know? Goodness!"
Herrera was found guilty and on Friday, July 15, she was sentenced to 50 years for murder, and another 50 for attempted capital murder.
Ogle believes it's a fair sentence.
"I think when you do something bad like that you should pay for it," she said.
Several other neighbors who didn't want to go on camera were the ones who sprayed the house down with their garden hoses, and tried to save the men inside.
"The people next door they tried to help the man get out," Ogle said, thinking back to the dramatic night.
Those neighbors said though justice has been served, the whole situation is still sad to them.
Years after the fire, the house where it all happened is still boarded up. The family moved out a long time ago but Monday neighbors told KSAT someone else has bought the property and plans to fix it up.
The roller coaster of the past several years has finally come to a stop, and the community is ready to move on.
Neighbors said Herrera's father is still sick, but is recovering as he lives with family members.
The Bexar County District Attorney's Office confirmed Miranda Herrera's accomplice, Sari Rodriguez, was a child at the time but was tried as an adult. She plead to 60 years in prison in October of 2015.