Witness testimony in the alleged attempted murder case against a former Oneida County Sheriff’s deputy started June 16.
The witnesses include a 911 dispatcher, the parents of Jennifer Gudnaya and responding fire fighters. Oneida County District Attorney Todd Carville said before the trial began that he had around 50 witnesses he planned to have take the stand.
The defendant, Aaron Alshaman, stands before Judge Robert Bauer at the Oneida Courthouse in Utica as testimony began.
Alshaman, 29, of Lee Center, is accused of setting fire to a Utica residence on April 9, 2025.
Gudnaya called 911 when the interior of the home she was in became overwhelmed with smoke. She fled outside with her infant child, and two parents.
Alshaman, the father of the infant, is charged with second-degree arson and four counts of second-degree attempted murder. Alshaman pleaded not guilty to all charges and bail was set at $250,000 or $500,000 cash bond.
He had been a member of the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office for around five years, serving from Sept. 2020 to March 2023 before serving shortly with the Rome Police Department and returning to the sheriff’s office on August 2024.
If convicted of his top charge alone, second-degree arson, Alshaman faces up to 25 years in state prison.
The night of the fire
Marjaret McQuiggan, the Oneida County 911 dispatcher who took the 911 call that night that Jennifer made on April 9, 2025, after she found her house was on fire.
“I advised her and her family to get out of the house,” McQuiggan said.
The 911 call was played for the jury to hear. People can be heard yelling in the background.
“We need the fire department at Kellogg Avenue, there’s a fire on the back end of the house,” a female said. McQuiggan asks for clarification, and the woman, who was identified as Gudnaya, said that there was fire in the house and that her mother and father were in the house and that she was trying to get her child out.
Theodore Gudnay, Jennifer’s father and one of the people in the house when it caught fire, said he was asleep in his room with his wife when Jennifer ran in, screaming there was a fire.
“I jumped up and saw smoke,” he said via interpreter. “I ran outside the back door near the basement and saw flames. I started looking for the fire extinguisher.” Theodore said he hadn’t heard the fire alarm until Jennifer alerted them because the smoke detector in their room had not gone off.
“Everything was in flames. The porch was on fire and the side of the house up to the second floor,” Theodore said.
Attempting to put the fire out with his garden hose, Theodore found it frozen solid and resorted to throwing full pots of water carried from inside.
When he got out of the house, Theodore said he realized he burned his feet bad enough to cause blisters running in and out of the house trying to put out the fire.
Galinia Gudnaya, Theodore’s wife and Jennifer’s mother, recounted the panic after she was alerted to the fire in the house. Galania explained how she tried to grab clothes and important documents, but both she and Jennifer realized that baby Ezekiel was being affected by the smoke.
“There was smoke everywhere and the baby started to cough,” Galania said.
They grabbed Ezekiel’s car seat and draped a blanket over it before taking Ezekiel out of the house and Galania got in the car with the baby.
“He noticed I was crying and I started telling him ‘Everything’s okay, everything’s okay with grandma.’ And then he fell asleep, but I had to make sure he was breathing okay,” Galania said.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: ‘Everything was in flames’ Witnesses outline night of fire
Reporting by Casey Pritchard, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Casey Pritchard, Utica Observer Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
