Details Emerge In Death Of Meriden Boy As Mom Awaits Extradition

As a North Carolina woman awaits extradition to Connecticut on charges she killed her son before setting their Meriden house on fire last year, details emerged Monday about the death of 8-year-old Elijah Ziolkowski, and the financial pressures and domestic tension that beset their family.

The boy died Nov. 14 from homicidal asphyxia and a lethal amount of the antihistamine diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, the state medical examiner’s office said Monday. After his death, two fires were set in the home with tiki torch fuel, according to a Meriden fire marshal’s report also released Monday.

Meriden investigators hold a warrant charging Karin Ziolkowski, 41, with murder and arson in connection with Elijah’s death. A judge near her new home in North Carolina ordered her held Monday on $1 million bond as extradition proceedings continue, the Gaston Gazette reported.

Ziolkowski’s arrest was the result of an 11-month investigation. Firefighters were first alerted to the house fire when a neighbor called 911 at 7:18 a.m. saying black smoke appeared to be coming from a vent in the home. The woman, heard in a 911 call released Monday, said the fire appeared “little.”

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Officers initially said both Karin and Elijah Ziolkowski had been pulled from the home and taken to hospital for smoke inhalation, but days later they said the boy was dead when he was found dead inside the home. The boy’s father, Marc Ziolkowski, was not home at the time of the fire.

Meanwhile, a picture of the couple’s life, racked with financial pressure and tension, became clearer Monday.

After a caller reported concerns about Elijah’s well being, the Department of Children and Families opened a child-protection case earlier in fall, according to the agency. While DCF was investigating, an eviction action was filed against the parents on Oct. 17, their divorce case was dismissed the same day for “a lack of diligence” on the couple’s part, and the father was arrested and charged with breach of peace on Oct. 25.

DCF Commissioner Joette Katz said nothing that DCF social workers observed would have foreshadowed the tragedy to come.

“As horrible as this end was for this young boy, the department’s brief involvement with the family provided no information that would have allowed our staff to foresee the outcome,” Katz said in a statement to The Courant.

“We were actively involved with the family for less than two months, during which time we learned that the couple was getting divorced and that the boy had been exposed to verbal disputes in the home between his parents,” Katz said, adding that there were “no allegations of physical abuse of the child by the mother.”

She said the father was receiving services and the boy was getting help in dealing with the tensions in the home arising from the divorce.

“There are occasions when a horrible act is completely unpredictable and without any warning signs,” Katz said. “This was such an instance.”

Meriden Fire Marshal Steve Trella detailed his investigation in a report obtained by The Courant Monday from Meriden corporation counsel Michael Quinn.

Trella said that when he got to the house on the day of the fire, Karin Ziolkowski was being placed into an ambulance, and that Elijah had already been taken to Midstate Medical Center in Meriden.

Fire officials at the scene told Trella that there appeared to be two separate fires: one in the basement and another on the first floor.

In the basement, Trella said, there was a pile of clothing, a cardboard box, and a blue plastic lighter. Upstairs, he said, there was “considerably more fire damage” and a “distinct ‘V’ pattern” by a bedroom window. Though there were burn patterns on the bottom of the bed frame, there was no bedding on the bed itself, he said.

Trella said there were “partial outlines of the two victims were visible on the one bed” where they had been found, and “smoke staining” in the room but no fire damage. Though there were two windows in the bedroom, neither was operable and “it didn’t appear an attempt was made to open either one due to the latches still being in the locked positions and no fingerprints on any portion of either window,” according to his report.

In speaking to Elijah’s father about a week after the fire, Marc Ziolkowski told police that Karin used “Tiki” oil for outside lamps and that he recognized a black plastic container in the room next to the bedroom as what the oil came in. That container, Trella said, was under a desk with a slice into it.

“There is no doubt that there were two completely separate fires that were intentionally set in the basement and first floor bedroom of this house,” Trella said in his report. “The use of Tiki oil as an accelerant, which was confirmed by the lab report at both locations in the basement and first floor bedroom, lead to no other reasonable conclusion.”

Detectives told Trella that Karin Ziolkowski did not attend Elijah’s wake.

A fire inspector told Trella that a neighbor across the street said that the father had not been home lately.

Karin Ziolkowski remained in the hospital, in critical condition, for several days after the fire, but police did not disclose when she was released.

The Gaston County judge explained the extradition process to Karin Ziolkowski during her brief appearance Monday, according to the Gason Gazette.

Meriden police has not released the arrest warrant for Ziolkowski, saying she has yet to be charged formally in Connecticut.

Ziolkowski had moved to North Carolina after Elijah’s death, officials said. Bessemer City Police said they were contacted Friday by Meriden investigators to pick Ziolkowski up. She was in the custody of local sheriffs through the weekend as a fugitive from Connecticut.

Karin Ziolkowsi had attempted to divorce Marc Ziolkowsi in March of last year, but court records show that a judge dismissed the case for lack of diligence. She claimed that the marriage had broken down irretrievably. The paperwork shows that Karin Ziolkowski had asked for sole custody of Elijah.

Marc Ziolkowski would not comment when reached by phone on Monday.

Court records show that Karin Ziolkowski had been living in a condo in Meriden that was foreclosed on in March 2014.

Linda Siegler, a neighbor of the Ziolkowski’s, said she was shocked by news of the charges against Karin Ziolkowski.

“I thought, ‘that’s impossible,'”Siegler said. “She was friendly, personable and soft-spoken. She was really close to the boy so something must’ve caused her to snap. They were a pea in a pod.”

Friday’s news brought some closure to the tightly knit neighborhood, according to Siegler, who said she attempted to help save Karin and Elijah from the burning home in November