POTOMAC, MD — A Long Island couple pleaded guilty to several charges this week, two years after a devastating fire ravaged their vacation home and killed two Montgomery County sisters who were vacationing with their family in the Hamptons on Long Island.

On Monday, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney announced that 56-year-old Peter Miller had pleaded guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter and that 55-year-old Pamela Miller had pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment following a fatal fire at the Millers’ apartment building.

Sisters Lindsay Wiener, 19, and Jillian Wiener, 21, of Potomac, died in the fire. They were graduates of the Holton-Arms School, an all-girls school in Bethesda.

According to Newsday, Holton Arms School Principal Susanna A. Jones said Jillian is a soccer and hockey player, an artist, a yoga teacher and a fundraiser for children with cancer, and Lindsay is president of the Community Service Club and the Jewish Culture Club.

Jillian was supposed to be a senior at the University of Michigan, while Lindsay was supposed to be a sophomore at Tulane. The report said.

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According to court documents, Lewis Wiener and his wife, Alisa Wiener, were on vacation with their three children, including Lindsay and Jillian, and their older brother, Zachary. The family stayed overnight at the Millers’ rental home in Noyac on Aug. 2, 2022. That evening, the family attempted to use a charcoal grill located in an outdoor kitchen attached to the main house, prosecutors said.

When the food wasn’t cooked, the family took it off the grill and cooked it in the indoor kitchen, Tierney said. The family ate dinner and went to bed around 11:30 p.m.

Around 3:30 a.m. the next day, the mother and father were awakened by the sound of breaking glass, Tierney said. When they left their bedroom to investigate, they saw fire in the kitchen and screamed for their children to get out of the house, Tierney said.

The couple managed to escape, but their father, Lew Wiener, came back to the house to look for his children. The heat forced him to leave the house and he suffered burns on his feet.

The couple’s son opened his bedroom door but was overwhelmed by the heat and smoke and could not find his sisters, prosecutors said.

When the son realized he was trapped in his bedroom, he jumped out a second-story window to escape, Tierney said.

The Sag Harbor Fire Department was the first of several fire departments to arrive on the scene, Tierney said. Fire chiefs saw flames in the kitchen, thick black smoke and intense heat, officials said.

Firefighters entered a second-floor bedroom and found the sisters, Tierney said. Both were taken to Southampton Hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries.

Surviving family members and firefighters reported that no fire alarms were heard at any time, Tierney said. Investigators later determined that the fire started in the outdoor kitchen, which the Millers built themselves without a permit and without an electrical inspection, Tierney said.

The outdoor kitchen was mostly made of wood and had low-hanging wood ceilings over the charcoal grill and gas stove. The charcoal grill’s lower grill vents were completely blocked by an attached counter, and the electrical circuits the outdoor kitchen shared with the indoor kitchen were overloaded and miswired, Tierney said.

The Millers listed the rental home in Noyac on several popular vacation rental websites. Their ad stated that the home was equipped with smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, Tierney said. But an electrical inspection found they were not properly connected and that there was inadequate fire detection throughout the home, Tierney said.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, several smoke detectors in the house were disabled by the fire and did not have a spare battery. This included the detector in the sisters’ room.

The Millers were arrested on Aug. 22 after turning themselves in to Suffolk County prosecutors, Tierney said. On Monday, Peter Miller pleaded guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter, while Pamela Miller pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment, Tierney said.

According to the district attorney, the Millers were charged with 29 building code violations, including failing to obtain a permit before renting, building an outdoor kitchen without a permit and failing to ensure smoke detectors were properly connected.

The Millers are due back in court on November 7.