Boys, ages 12 and 14, were so incensed at being kicked out of a Lakewood apartment into the cold of an early Halloween morning, they retaliated with “a big ass fire,” according to testimony Tuesday at the suspects’ preliminary hearing.

That’s what the older of the boys told an investigator who interviewed him after he was arrested Nov. 6. An investigator testified the boy turned himself in nearly a week after the fire at Lakewood’s Tiffany Square apartments killed a mother and her 5th grade daughter, and injured 10 including a firefighter who suffered smoke inhalation.

Kathleen Payton, 31, and her 10-year-old daughter Jazmine Payton Aguayo, died of smoke inhalation in the overnight fire. Residents of 32 units lost their homes.

Lakewood Police Det. Sarah Poellot was the only witness to testify the 14 year-old’s evidentiary hearings, which had investigators and prosecutors choking back tears at times. The Denver Gazette is not naming the boy because he is a juvenile. He sat quietly in the courtroom for the proceedings.

A preliminary hearing is for prosecutors to present evidence to a judge, who must then decide if the evidence is strong enough to send a suspect to trial on the criminal charges.

First Judicial District Judge Philip McNulty bound the 14 year-old over for trial, which is scheduled for May. The defendant and his alleged younger accomplice are being tried as juveniles and face 100 charges each including first degree murder with extreme indifference, first degree arson and criminal mischief. Around half of the charges are enhancers in a crime which shook the Lakewood community.

Surveillance video recorded from the west side of the Tiffany Square Apartments at 935 Sheridan Boulevard showed the boys started the fire in a stand of bushes near the apartment where they were kicked out at 4:07 a.m. Oct. 31. They added trash to make it bigger and by 4:13, the flames were snaking out of control. A wooden walkway above the foliage was engulfed  and moved to the front doors of adjacent units in minutes, the video showed.

In her closing argument, prosecutor Margaret Crabb said the boys could be heard giggling on the video as they fled the fire and that “residents can be heard screaming.”

The footage showed people running in panic from their homes, many of them in their pajamas with no shoes. Families in two of the second floor units could not get out of their front doors and jumped out of the window with their children, some suffering burns to their feet.

Victims Payton and her daughter woke to the fire at the door of their home and scurried to the bathroom for cover. The 10-year-old died in the bathtub surrounded by towels and blankets. Her mother “died holding a towel to the bottom of the door to keep smoke out to save herself and Jazmine,” testified Poellot.

In one of the saddest moments of the hearing, prosecutors revealed that Payton died as she was telling the 911 operator about her daughter.  Instead of playing the heartbreaking audio from the phone call in the courtroom, Judge Philip McNulty opted to listen to it in private during his lunch break.

It was an emotional day for victims, their families, prosecutors and even investigators. Poellot choked back tears as she recounted Jazmine’s age and remembered that the walkway was so damaged, firefighters had to get into their apartment through the window and then break through the wall of the unit next door.

In closings, the defendant’s attorneys said there was no way he could have known that the bushes could start such an inferno.

“We’re talking about a 14 year-old kid. He wasn’t trying to hurt anybody,” Holly Gummerson said.

She blamed the 12-year-old co-defendant for coming up with the idea to start the fire.

The 12-year-old suspect is due in court for his preliminary hearing Jan. 3. The next court date for the 14-year-old defendant is Jan. 9. Trials for the two are set for May, but that date may be changed due to attorney schedules.

Prosecutors said both boys have criminal histories. The 12-year-old had a warrant for menacing charges and the 14-year-old had a history of weapon use and severe substance abuse. The older boy had been bouncing between relatives and guardians before he ran away from his grandfather’s home last August, prosecutors said.

In Colorado, the longest sentence a juvenile can face for any crime is seven years, meaning the 12-year-old suspect could be released at age 19 and the 14-year-old at age 21.

Many fire victims believe that punishment is too light.

“I don’t care what anybody says. They were well aware all of us had babies,” said Ayoncee’ Hicks, who said she’d seen both boys hanging around outside her home. She, her 1-year-old son and a friend saved themselves by jumping out of a second floor window. “They think they’re so grown up. They need to be shown what it’s like. They already had backgrounds. Clearly they will never learn their lesson.”