Peter and Pamela Miller plead guilty in fire death of 2 sisters at Noyac vacation rental

A married couple whose Noyac rental house didn’t have working smoke detectors when it caught fire, killing a pair of sisters from Maryland who were vacationing with their family in 2022, pleaded guilty to charges related to the fire Monday, the Suffolk district attorney’s office said.

Peter Miller, 56, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminally negligent homicide and Pamela Miller, 55, pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment in connection with the fire that killed Lindsay Wiener, 19, and Jillian Wiener, 21, of Potomac, Maryland, prosecutors said.

"First and foremost, our hearts go out to the Wiener family, who lost these young women in this tragic fire. Such a loss is unimaginable, and our community mourns with them," Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a statement Monday. "We take all matters involving housing regulations very seriously, as they are crucial for public safety. If you have a rental home, you have a duty to make sure that it is safe."

Lindsay Wiener had just finished her freshman year at Tulane University, focusing on marketing and Jewish studies. Jillian Wiener was a rising senior at the University of Michigan who had just "finished a semester studying abroad, studying ocean conservation," according to a 2022 lawsuit filed by the parents against the Millers and other entities.

The attorney for the Millers, Edward Burke Jr., declined to comment Monday.

The origin of the Aug. 3, 2022, fire was an outdoor kitchen, which the Millers constructed on their own without a permit and without an electrical inspection, prosecutors said. The family had attempted to use an outdoor charcoal grill located in the outdoor kitchen that was attached to the main house, but the food did not cook, so the family removed the food and instead cooked the food inside, prosecutors said. After eating dinner, the family went to bed at about 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 2.

Prosecutors said the outdoor kitchen was "mostly made of wood with low-hanging wood ceilings that sat above the charcoal grill and gas stove. The bottom grill vents of the charcoal grill were completely blocked by an attached counter, and the electrical circuits that the outdoor kitchen shared with the indoor kitchen were overloaded and improperly wired."

The mother and father awoke to the sound of glass shattering at about 3:30 a.m. on Aug. 3, prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, the following occurred: "When they left their bedroom to investigate, they saw fire in the kitchen and screamed for their children to get out of the house. The couple escaped, but the father reentered the home to locate his children. The heat conditions forced him out of the house and left him with burns on his feet. The couple’s son opened his bedroom door and heard his sisters screaming but was overwhelmed by the heat and smoke conditions and could not locate them. After realizing the fire had trapped him in his bedroom, the son jumped from a second-story window to escape."

Firefighters gained access to a second-story bedroom, where they located Jillian on the floor and Lindsay on the floor of the second-floor bathroom. Both were transported to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, where they died from their injuries.

Prosecutors said the Millers advertised the rental home as being equipped with smoke and carbon monoxide detectors on multiple popular vacation rental sites, but a post-fire electrical inspection report revealed they were not connected properly and there was not adequate fire detection throughout the home.

Prosecutors said the smoke detector in one of the second-floor bedrooms was "de-energized by the fire due to overloaded electrical circuits, and no battery backup existed." The smoke detector in the bedroom where Lindsay and Jillian stayed was also de-energized during the fire and did not have a functioning battery backup, prosecutors said. The smoke detector in the bedroom where the sisters’ parents stayed was disconnected from the electrical system and did not have a battery backup, prosecutors said.

The Millers were prosecuted earlier in Southampton Town Court for 29 code violations, including failing to have properly connected smoke detectors and backup batteries for the devices. The disposition of that case was not immediately available.

The Millers are due back in court on the criminal case Nov. 7.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.