The sister of movie star Nargis Fakhri has been arrested for murder for allegedly starting a blaze in a fit of jealousy in a Queens garage that killed the suspect’s ex-boyfriend and his new female friend, the Daily News has learned.
Aliya Fakhri, 43, was arrested for murder and arson Tuesday. She is accused of setting the fire that killed her ex Edward Jacobs, 35, and his new pal Anastasia “Star” Ettienne, 33.
The blaze was set in a cluttered two-story garage Jacobs was squatting in behind a private home on 91st Ave. near 175th St. in Jamaica on Nov. 2.
“I don’t think she would be killing someone,” Aliya Fakhri’s mother told the Daily News in an exclusive interview. “She was a person who was caring for everybody. She tried to help everybody.”
But Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz tells a different story.
“This defendant maliciously ended the lives of two people by setting a fire that trapped a man and woman in a raging inferno,” Katz said in a statement after Aliya was ordered held without bail during her Wednesday arraignment in Queens Criminal Court. “The victims tragically died from smoke inhalation and thermal injuries.”
The suspect’s only sibling, Nargis Fakhri, is a former two-time contestant on America’s Next Top Model and a much-loved Bollywood film star with 16 million followers on Facebook.
Nargis Fakhri’s film breakthrough came with a starring role in 2011’s Rockstar, a Hindi-language musical drama in which she portrayed the love interest of the title character. In 2015 she appeared alongside Melissa McCarthy in Spy as assassin Lia and the two were nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
The mother hasn’t seen her younger daughter in the last three years — and says Aliya became unstable due to an opioid addiction that began after a dental mishap.
A procedure to treat a tooth infection about 10 years ago at a local hospital left Aliya unable to move her tongue, her mother said.
“She had a tooth pulled and it cut the nerve,” said the mother, who asked not to be named. “She sued and she won the lawsuit after three years and in the meantime she got hooked on Oxycontin.”
Despite her growing addiction, Aliya had tried to go back to school after receiving the settlement money, studying nursing in North Carolina.
“She wanted to help people,” said the mother. “But the problem was she was on the Oxycontin. She dropped the classes.”
The 6:35 a.m. blaze that killed Jacobs and Ettienne was too sudden and large to rescue the victims from, witnesses said.
“I was in the house,” said a man who lives on the first floor of the house in front of the garage where the fire started. “Everybody went to the back [to the garage] to try to get them out and couldn’t. We didn’t have a chance. The fire was too huge to get in.”
Anastasia “Star” Ettienne with her children. (Courtesy of Jah’Aisha Ettienne)
Another man, who spoke to The News on the condition of anonymity, said he and Jacobs had been illegally living in the two-story detached garage and Ettienne was there for a visit.
“We were all upstairs. Eddie was sleeping and Star and I were talking and she was laughing,” the man told The News after the fire.
“Somebody comes in the garage. We didn’t know who it was at first but we recognized her voice and she said, ‘You’re going to die today! I can’t believe you keep doing this to me! You’re going to die!’”
“We smelled something sweet burning,” he added. “I don’t know if it was gasoline or what. We ran out and the couch on the stairs was on fire and we had to jump over it to get out. Star jumped over with me but she went back in to save [Jacobs].
Ettienne never made it back out. Both her and Jacobs died at the scene.
“It was an abusive relationship,” the man who escaped said of the relationship between Jacobs and the accused arsonist. “She told everybody [in the past] she was going to burn his house down, that she was going to kill him. We just laughed at her.”
Jacobs’ aunt said he was a talented self-taught handyman and father of three, including a pair of twins.
“He was very very good with his hands. And everybody genuinely liked to be around him and loves to be around him because he’s always making people laugh,” said Dominique Mayers, 36.
Jacobs’ grandmother’s funeral was the same day he was killed in the blaze, bringing more tragedy to an already fraught day.
“An hour before her funeral, that’s when we got the news,” Mayers said. “It’s crazy because at the funeral we’re seeing slideshows and doing the obituary, of her leaving– who she left behind. And he is one of them that you put in, you know, because we made the obituary before.”
Firefighters worked at the scene of the arson that left two people dead. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
Ettienne’s sister Jah’Aisha Ettienne contacted the morgue and described her sibling’s tattoos to help confirm Ettienne was the victim. The final confirmation was made through fingerprints the next day.
“My mother is lost, distraught,” the heartbroken sister said. “It’s hard to lose your child.”
The accused killer’s mother, unable to bear seeing her younger daughter hooked on opioids, eventually gave up hope but never expected her to be charged with murder.
“I cry and I pray so many years now,” she said.. “Then I stop.”
