Credits: QMI Agency/The Daily Graphic/Angela Brown
A troubled teenager pleaded guilty Tuesday to setting the fire that killed a man at a St. John's rooming house last fall.
Carlos Escobar Medina, 54, died when the home where both of them were living went up in flames on Nov. 27, 2011. Four others made it out alive.
The 17-year-old accused, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to seven charges, including manslaughter. He is scheduled to be sentenced in August.
The case prompted Newfoundland and Labrador's Child and Youth Advocate to launch an investigation into whether the system had failed the teen, who was 16 when he set the fatal fire.
"The main question that I am seeking to answer is: Did the services provided by the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services; the Department of Justice; the Department of Health and Community Services and Eastern Health meet the needs of this youth and were his rights to services upheld?" spokesman Carol Chafe said in a statement in December.
That investigation is ongoing.
