The murder trial of accused arsonist Jason Allen Rose begins with jury selection Tuesday – the culmination of 16 months worth of pain, rebuilding, accusations and courtroom wrangling.

The October 2005 fire killed three residents of the Boardwalk Apartments.

Kansas University student Nicole Bingham, 21, electrician Jose Gonzalez, 50, and social worker Yolanda Riddle, 33, were killed in the fire. More than a dozen others were injured and left homeless.

Rose’s acquittal or conviction could hinge on two factors: whether he intended to set the apartment on fire and whether his history of abuse allowed him to accurately confess the crimes to police.

But this much is sure: since the apartment burned more than a year ago, much has transpired with Rose, the fire victims and the city as a whole.

Come to grips

In a matter of hours the night of Oct. 7, 2005, flames had killed three, wounded 18 and leveled a blocklong, 76-unit apartment building at the Boardwalk Apartments in the 500 block of Fireside Drive.

According to insurance estimates, the fire incinerated more than $5 million in residences and personal property.

But the property, Lawrence Fire Marshal Rich Barr said, can often be invaluable. For example, the fire destroyed many music artifacts destined for the Kansas Music Hall of Fame.

“We would have a difficult time estimating the value of all the property there,” Barr said.

In the days after the fire, residents, family members and fire investigators searched for answers – and the identities of three bodies found charred inside.

Five days after the fire leveled the apartments, prosecutors charged then 20-year-old Rose, a resident in the apartments, with three counts of murder, aggravated arson and a host of aggravated batteries for each injured resident.

As the families of the three victims and other injured residents searched for help from the Red Cross and others, Rose’s history began to trickle out through court proceedings and sources from his past.

Rose once lit a trash can on fire at a group home where he lived before moving to Boardwalk. He was also arrested as a juvenile for stealing lighters from a hardware store – a fact that jurors won’t hear in court this week.

But jurors will be allowed to hear a confession Rose gave to police Detective Troy Squire in the days after the fire. Whether that confession was wholly accurate, however, will be hotly debated in Judge Jack Murphy’s courtroom.

Squire testified in a preliminary hearing last year that Rose eventually admitted to setting a box of paperwork on fire in the complex after what Squire described as Rose’s “struggles with deception.”

But Rose’s defense attorney, Ron Evans, asked Squire in court if his client could have been struggling mentally.

“Could be a lot of things,” Squire said at the time. “I took it as deception.”

Evans filed a motion to have the confession suppressed. But Murphy didn’t agree, allowing both the confession and testimony from the defense’s expert witness, KU professor Yolanda Jackson.

Jackson has spent hours with Rose since he was charged, learning about his troubled past and trying to glean whether the confession he gave during an hourslong police interview might have been slanted by the experiences that have shaped his life.

But for the victims and the city, the trial won’t only be about experiences that shaped Rose’s life. In some ways, the deadly fire is still changing the landscape of the city.

Fire code changes

Shortly after the fire, city officials vowed to change city fire codes to require that apartments of all sizes have sprinklers.

Barr has been revising a letter asking city administrators to consider a change in the city’s fire code – requiring sprinkler systems for all new apartment complexes built in the city.

But Barr is anticipating some confusion if the new code – the 2006 version of the International Fire Code – is put in place as is.

That’s because the IFC mandates that all residential units, even single-family homes and duplexes, have sprinkler systems installed.

Both the city’s neighborhood resources department and the Building Code Board of Appeals wants to see another code put in place that would override the IFC for one- or two-family units – such as the International Residential Code.

But unless that happens at the same time as the implementation of the IFC, builders could be stuck installing sprinklers on all new homes until a new residential code is in place.

“That’s a big question,” Barr said, “and something the City Commission is going to ask.”

Gag order

Since the fire, many victims have spent months trying to recuperate from their injuries – severe burns and broken limbs and bones from jumping out of windows to safety.

But many have since moved on with their lives.

KU graduate Leigh McHatton spent months recuperating from her burns at home in Winona, in western Kansas. The 25-year-old suffered burns to her hands, feet and face during the fire.

But she returned to school in February and graduated in May, eventually moving to Denver to pursue a career in art, her father, J.C. McHatton, said.

“In a way, you want to move on and you want to continue,” she said just before graduation. “I’ve really taken ownership of what’s happened to me. It’s really a part of who I am now.”

Eli Greenbaum was also hurt in the fire, breaking both ankles when he leapt from his balcony as his apartment burned. His injuries left him with a limp he struggled to overcome.

Still, Greenbaum earned a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from KU in May, and he is now a postdoctoral research fellow in the labs of Aaron Bauer and Todd Jackman at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. He studies the biology of geckos.

Neither Greenbaum, McHatton or several others injured in the fire returned calls this week.

Murphy has imposed a rare gag order for many involved in the trial – including many victims included in the witness list who could testify.

Family members of the three who died are also included in the witness list. Nicole Bingham’s mother, Nancy, said she couldn’t comment on her plans for the trial, saying she wanted to remain silent publicly until after the jury returned a verdict.

But Dale Wolford of Quality Electric, who worked with Jose Gonzalez, said he would keep a close eye on the trial as it gets under way Tuesday.

“I know I’ll follow it,” Wolford said. “I’m curious to see how it all turns out.”