New York Paroled a Convicted Thief in February. Four Months Later, Six People Burned to Death in the Motel He’s Charged With Setting on Fire.

At about 6:01 a.m. on Monday, June 22, 2026, the Broome County 911 center began taking calls about a fire at the Knights Inn, a two-story roadside motel at 2603 East Main Street in Endwell, New York. Crews from ten fire departments found heavy black smoke pouring from the front of the building and flames showing from the rear. The blaze spread fast. By that afternoon, investigators confirmed six people were dead and two more were hospitalized.

The Knights Inn was not just a motel. It was one of several hotels the Broome County Department of Social Services used to house families who had nowhere else to go — a homeless shelter in everything but name. A Red Cross volunteer at the scene estimated 73 people, roughly 37 households, were displaced.

That night, the New York State Police arrested Tyler J. Russell, 24, of Endwell, and charged him with six counts of second-degree manslaughter and one count of fourth-degree arson. Russell, according to authorities, had been released on parole in February — about four months earlier — after serving roughly two years in state prison for grand larceny. He is presumed innocent; the case is pending. This page lays out what is established, who is responsible for the system that put him back on the street and the families inside that motel, and what is still unknown — source by source.

• 6 dead — fatalities confirmed in the Knights Inn fire; two more people were hospitalized at Wilson Medical Center · Source: NY State Police; Spectrum News 1
• Paroled February 2026 — when the accused, Tyler J. Russell, 24, was released after ~2 years in state prison for fourth-degree grand larceny · Source: Fox News; FireRescue1
• 6 manslaughter + 1 arson — the counts filed: six counts of second-degree manslaughter (class C felony) and one count of fourth-degree arson (class E) · Source: NY State Police press release
• ~73 displaced — people, roughly 37 households, forced out of the motel, per a Red Cross estimate at the scene · Source: Spectrum News 1; Fox News
• DSS homeless housing — the Broome County Department of Social Services placed most Knights Inn residents there as temporary shelter · Source: Spectrum News 1; FireRescue1
• “Predictable and avoidable” — how a local outreach organizer described the tragedy, saying residents had flagged safety issues “for years” · Source: Spectrum News 1

According to the New York State Police, calls began reaching the Broome County 911 center at about 6:01 a.m. on June 22. The first crews to arrive at the Knights Inn reported flames shooting from the upper section of the two-story building and were told several people were trapped in a second-floor room. In all, ten fire departments and four ambulance companies responded; the building burned for hours. Late that afternoon, investigators raised the death toll to six and confirmed two people were hospitalized at nearby Wilson Medical Center.

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At approximately 8:26 p.m. that same day — about 14 hours after the first 911 call — the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested Tyler J. Russell (24), of Endwell. The arrest came, the State Police said, “following consultation with the Broome County District Attorney’s Office.” Russell was charged with six counts of second-degree manslaughter, a class C felony, and one count of fourth-degree arson, a class E felony, then processed at SP Endwell and transferred to the Broome County Jail for centralized arraignment. Authorities have not announced a motive, and the investigation remains open. The charges are allegations; Russell has not been tried or convicted.

The detail that turned a local fire into a national story is the accused man’s status when it happened. According to Fox News and corroborating local coverage, Russell had been released on parole in February 2026 — only about four months before the fire — after serving roughly two years in New York state prison on a fourth-degree grand larceny conviction. He was, in other words, a recently paroled felon already on community supervision when prosecutors say he set the blaze that killed six people sheltering in county-paid rooms.

In New York, discretionary release is the job of the state Board of Parole, an arm of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS). Its commissioners are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the State Senate. That chain of accountability runs straight to Albany: it is the state — not Broome County — that decides who comes home early and who supervises them afterward. The page does not allege the parole board did anything unlawful in releasing Russell on a larceny sentence. It documents the sequence the public is entitled to see: a felon released on the state’s authority, then charged months later with one of the deadliest fires the region has seen.

The Knights Inn was one of several roadside motels the Broome County Department of Social Services used to house families experiencing homelessness, paying for rooms as emergency shelter. Most of the people living there when it burned were DSS placements, according to Spectrum News 1. That is the part of the story that moves it from a single arrest to a question of governance: the dead were not transient guests but people the county had placed in a building it knew, or should have known, was being used far beyond what a motel is built for.

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Survivors told reporters the building’s fire protection failed. Ashley Backus, who had been housed there by DSS with her family, said the bedroom roof caved in and that “you did not hear one fire alarm throughout the whole fire, except for the one main one outside.” Another resident, identified as Michelle, said flatly: “My smoke alarm should have gone off, and it didn’t. No smoke alarms went off.” Masai Andrews, an outreach organizer who works with families at the motel, called it “a predictable and avoidable tragedy” and said residents “have been talking about safety issues there for years.” Those are firsthand accounts of conditions, not findings; what the smoke detectors did or didn’t do is something fire investigators will have to establish.

“The folks who live there have been talking about safety issues there for years. This was a predictable and avoidable tragedy.”

Masai Andrews, outreach organizer, to Spectrum News 1 (June 2026)

Accountability here splits across two governments. The Department of Social Services that placed homeless families in the Knights Inn answers to the county. Broome County Executive Jason Garnar (D), in office since 2017, said after the fire that the county’s priority was “the safety and well-being of everyone affected.” Notably, Garnar had already conceded the underlying problem: in a May 2026 announcement he said that “hotels and motels were never designed to solve homelessness” and that they “leave people stuck in the same cycle,” pledging to phase out the practice. The fire came before that phase-out was finished.

The criminal-justice side runs to the state. The accused was on New York state parole, a system whose Board of Parole commissioners are appointed by Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and confirmed by the State Senate. The charges themselves were brought by the State Police in consultation with Broome County District Attorney F. Paul Battisti (R), who ran on a public-safety platform and was elected in 2023. The prosecution is the one part of this story working as designed; the release decision and the shelter placement are the parts the public is owed answers on.

An honest account marks the lines. What is on the record: six people died; the State Police arrested Russell and filed six manslaughter counts and an arson count; he had been paroled in February after a larceny term; the motel housed county-placed homeless families; survivors say the alarms did not sound; and a local organizer called the deaths predictable. What is not yet established: a motive, the fire’s exact cause and origin, the condition and code status of the building’s fire-alarm and sprinkler systems, and whether anyone besides the accused bears legal responsibility. Those are open questions for fire marshals, prosecutors, and any later civil litigation.

And the central caution: Tyler J. Russell is charged, not convicted. Second-degree manslaughter in New York alleges recklessness rather than intent to kill, and the arson count is the lowest degree — the charging decisions themselves suggest a case still taking shape. He is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and nothing here should be read as a finding of guilt. The accountability questions about parole and about housing the homeless in a roadside motel stand on their own facts, independent of how this one prosecution ends.

Six people are dead in a motel that New York’s social-services system was using to house homeless families, and the man charged with setting the fire had been returned to the street on the state’s own parole authority four months earlier. Those two facts — a release decision and a sheltering decision — converged on one building at 6 a.m. on a Monday. The criminal case will run its course under the presumption of innocence. But the questions of why a recently paroled felon was on the street, and why vulnerable families were housed in a motel residents say had failing fire alarms, belong to the public officials who run those systems. We’ll track the fire-cause findings, the prosecution, and any accounting from Broome County and Albany.

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