NEW YORK — A 77-year-old man and 78-year-old woman were discovered dead inside a Queens home Monday after a man entered the house and set it ablaze, according to police.

Emergency medical workers pronounced them dead at the home, a small two-story house in Bellerose, Queens.

Authorities have not released the victims’ names, and no arrests have been made in connection with their killing, police said Tuesday.

According to preliminary information from police, a man, who has not yet been identified, entered the home Monday and set it on fire while the pair was inside. The suspect had come to the house around 10 a.m., entering through the back after the male victim opened a door, according to an internal police document obtained by The New York Times.

Just after 3 p.m., the man left the house, and by 3:22 p.m. the house’s fire alarm was ringing, the internal document said.

The pair’s son, a paramedic who was off duty, was alerted to the fire by his parents’ neighbors, according to the document. He rushed to the house, along with police officers and firefighters, who put out the blaze.

Inside the house, officers discovered the woman, lying unconscious on the first floor. In the basement, they found the man chained to the a wall with signs of trauma on his body, according to police and the internal document.

Many circumstances of the deaths remained murky Tuesday, including the events that preceded the fire.

The city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner will determine the pair’s exact cause of death, police said.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Maia Coleman/Dakota Santiago
c. 2025 The New York Times Company