COLORADO SPRINGS - A man suspected of setting a Jan. 16 apartment complex fire that killed two men had threatened to kill his former girlfriend and "barbecue" their 6-month-old daughter shortly before the blaze erupted.

In a series of phone calls and text messages, Derrick Nicholas "Nicky" Johnson, 23, made the threats against Najua Bell-Jackson, who had been staying with friends and family at the Castle West Apartments, 3770 E. Uintah Street, Colorado Springs police said.

Johnson, who had been mad at Bell-Jackson for leaving him, threatened to blow up the apartments, kill her and their child by "torturing it and then putting it on a barbecue grill and burning it," according to a police affidavit released Wednesday.

Her friends and family, however, did not call police because "they felt that Nicky was just talking and he wasn't actually planning on doing any of these things," Detective Derek A. Gibson wrote in the affidavit.

Instead, they went to sleep but awoke to sparks coming from beneath the apartment door and heard people yelling fire, which broke out within an hour of Johnson's last call.

The blaze quickly engulfed the 130-unit complex.

Police arrested Johnson and his cousin, Gene Johnson, 36, on two-counts of first-degree murder.

Police later arrested three other men as accessories.

Derrick Johnson has an extensive criminal history that includes charges of theft, burglary, aggravated robbery, drug distribution, assault, sexual assault and domestic violence.

In the affidavit, police said he also admitted to having formerly been a member of the Bloods gang.

He claimed as a motive for the fire that it was a "GD/Bloods thing."

Johnson also tried to pin the arson on his older cousin. But the affidavit describes how detectives were able to unravel and contradict several aspects of the story he gave them.

Initially, Johnson was cooperative.

"I'll give you some stuff, I'll show you where the gas can, the socks and the hat is," he told one officer.

He claimed that it was his cousin "Geno" Johnson who pulled a pair of socks over his hands and took a borrowed gasoline can toward the apartments before the fire broke out with a "whoosh."

But detectives were also able to locate a third man who identified Derrick Johnson as one of two men he had given a ride to a convenience store after he told the driver that their car was out of gas.

That witness said it was Derrick Johnson who got out of the car with the gasoline can that he had purchased at the convenience store.

The case

Details in the case against Derrick "Nicky" Johnson include:

• That he threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend and barbecue their 6-month-old daughter hours before a fatal fire broke out.

• That the ex-girlfriend and her family did not believe he would carry out his threats and went to sleep.

• That the fire broke out within an hour after his last call.

• That he claimed his older cousin had set the fire as a gang-related crime.

ensslinj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5291

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