Madonna Badger
The live embers that sparked the Christmas Day inferno that killed three little girls were taken out of the fireplace because the children feared they’d injure Santa Claus, investigators revealed yesterday — hours after their grief-stricken mom made a somber return to the tragic scene.
High-powered fashion advertising exec Madonna Badger — her face and head wrapped in a long scarf — returned for the first time Monday to the ruins of her $1.7 million Stamford, Conn., home to go through the few belongings not consumed in the blaze that killed her daughters, 10-year-old Lily and 7-year-old twins Grace and Sarah.
Badger’s parents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson, also died in the blaze.
Two men accompanied Badger as she walked bravely past the crime-scene tape and a fence surrounding the property toward her still-standing garage. The house has been razed.
She was warmly embraced by a small group of supportive girlfriends.
Badger and her friends then entered the garage, spending more than an hour inside before emerging with several large bags of personal items.
Hours later, authorities told The Associated Press about the girls’ heartbreakingly tragic request.
Badger’s contractor beau, Mike Borcina, put the ashes outside in a bag, without dousing them with water. The wind carried them back toward the house, investigators have said.
Badger and Borcina escaped the flames that engulfed the 19th-century Victorian mansion, which was under renovation.
After her gut-wrenching trip to Connecticut, Badger returned to upstate New York, where she remained in seclusion yesterday with family.
She declined to speak with reporters.
The Badger girls and their doting grandparents will be mourned today at a private wake at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on the Upper East Side.
A funeral service for the girls, open to the public, is slated for 10:30 a.m. tomorrow at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue.
A private service for the Johnsons will be held later that day, said funeral-home President George Amato.
The deaths have been ruled accidental.
Additional reporting by Douglas Healey , Helen Freund and Liz Sadler