by MICHAEL WILSON
Firefighters and police officers called to an apartment fire on Staten Island early Sunday found an unconscious woman who had been stabbed in the neck and chest and who later died, the police said.
The fire, at 351 Woodstock Avenue, was reported in a call to 911 at 12:34 a.m., the police said.
The fire was several blocks from the house fire in which a lieutenant in the Fire Department was killed. The two fires were reported minutes apart, although there was no evidence that they were connected, the police said.
The fire that killed the lieutenant, Robert J. Ryan, at 39 Van Buren Street, was reported at 12:32 a.m., and his engine was the first to respond, at 12:36 a.m., the Fire Department said.
The police identified the woman in the other fire as Colene Adams, 43.
Ms. Adams and Lieutenant Ryan were taken separately to Richmond University Medical Center, where they were pronounced dead.
The medical examiner will determine the cause of Ms. Adams's death, and fire marshals will investigate the cause of the fire, the police said. There had been no arrests as of Sunday evening.
Ms. Adams lived alone in a second-floor apartment in the three-story building, which is near Silver Lake Park, neighbors said. She had been the host of a party on Saturday night, with loud music spilling out of the windows, they said.
On Sunday, a pile of her charred belongings, including a mattress and clothing, were on the ground outside a blackened window. The window guards had been contorted from the heat of the fire.
"She was very kindhearted," said one neighbor who declined to give her name. "No one deserves that."
Karen Zraick contributed reporting.
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