The three young daughters and parents of a prominent fashion- marketing executive were killed in a horrific Christmas-morning blaze that tore through her million-dollar Connecticut home, authorities said.
Madonna Badger, 47, a founding partner of the top-tier branding firm Badger & Winters, and a male friend were the only ones to escape the furious 5 a.m. fire , which gutted the waterfront Victorian home in Stamford.
Her 10-year-old daughter, Lily, and 7-year-old twins, Sarah and Grace, died in the inferno, according to a relative who did not want to be identified.
Badger’s parents, who were visiting from Southbury, Conn., also died, cops said. Public records identify them as Lomer and Pauline Johnson.
“My whole life is in there,” Badger sobbed as emergency responders led her away from the flame-filled home.
Lomer Johnson landed his dream job this holiday season as Saks Fifth Avenue's famed Santa Claus and worked on Christmas Eve, one day before his tragic death.
"We are heartbroken about this terrible tragedy," said Saks spokeswoman Julia Bentley.
"We express our deepest condolences to his daughter, Madonna Badger, and her family and friends on this inexplicable loss. Our thoughts and hearts go out to them."
Badger, a recent Manhattan transplant, “was completely distraught,” said neighbor Fern Loeb. “She wasn’t able to stand — but I don’t think it was a physical thing.
“I just saw flames coming out of the back of the house. I heard someone screaming, ‘Help me! Help me!’ ” Loeb added through tears.
Firefighters knew that there were other people inside the home, on the second floor, but the flames had spread so quickly that they couldn’t get to them.
“They were pushed back by intense flame and heat,” said a distraught Fire Chief Antonio Conte.
Another neighbor, Charles Mangano, said he woke up to see “a ball of flames in the sky.”
“The velocity of the flames was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It was just all over the house,” said Mangano, 57.
He soon saw Badger and, later, a barefoot man wearing boxers and a T-shirt being taken out of the house.
“He had to be supported on both sides. He looked dazed,” Mangano said.
“They looked shocked.”
Badger and the man, contractor Michael Borcina, were hospitalized in fair condition, authorities said.
The mom was later released and transferred to an undisclosed location. She looked devastated as she briefly emerged from the hospital.
A relative of her estranged husband, Matthew Badger, said he is “absolutely distraught.”
He was at home in New York when the blaze broke out, and rushed to Stamford, according to cops.
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