Kimberly Gregory held up an urn containing the ashes of her 20-year-old daughter Michela as she faced the men held responsible for the notorious Ghost Ship warehouse fire that killed 36 people one and a half years ago.
“This is all we have left of her,” Gregory said as a somber Derick Almena and Max Harris listened inside the courtroom at their sentencing hearing Thursday.
“Can you feel that pain?” Michela’s aunt, Karen Frieholtz, asked the men. She told Almena and Harris to close their eyes and imagine their own daughter screaming in anguish while she burned. Almena, who has two daughters, and Harris closed their eyes.
“I hope you’re both haunted for the rest of your lives,” she said as Harris wiped away tears. Michela’s parents grasped each other in the courtroom’s front row, weeping.