Judge gives Rock Falls man 3 life sentences for 2020 arson

A 45-year-old Rock Falls man was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences Thursday for the murders of Celina Serrano, 13; Carrie Hose, 49; and Shyla Walker, 8.

Steven Coleman also was sentenced to 105 years for arson.

In July, a jury found Coleman guilty of arson and murder charges.

Coleman chose not to appear at his sentencing at Whiteside County Courthouse.

“I’d have rather he showed up so I could at least look him in the eye, but at the end of the day, even during the court hearings he wasn’t showing any type of remorse,” said Alma Walker, the mother of Celina Serrano. “So, like I said, there’s nothing that him being there could’ve done besides what the judge had already given him.”

Regardless of whether he was there or not, the sentencing proceeded.

“It is uncommon. Generally we see defendants present,” said James Mertes, an attorney for Serrano and Hose. “Mr. Coleman, for reasons that only he knows, chose not to be present for his sentencing hearing, as was his right. That he was not present for his sentencing hearing does not change the outcome for him. Either way, he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Even after they know Coleman will be put behind bars, families of the victims struggle to continue without their loved ones.

(Gavin Waidelich, OurQuadCitiesNews.com)

“It is very hard to place the words, when you have suffered through burying a child with no money, because it’s a parent’s job to take care of their kids and they are supposed to bury us, not the other way around,” Faith Walker, the mother of Shyla Walker, said during her victim impact statement.

“This part of it is over, but honestly our families are still healing and they’re going to be healing for a long time,” said Alma Walker, Celina Serrano’s mother. “There’s never no complete, because obviously we lost two that we’re actually family family. And then I lost a close friend so, you can’t bring none of that back.”

A tragedy four years ago

In July, a Whiteside County jury convicted Coleman of setting a fire that killed three people in a Sterling apartment.

The blaze happened in June of 2020 at the Western Apartments Complex, 908 W. 3rd St. The fire was throughout the second story of the building when rescue crews arrived.

Emergency personnel were also informed that several people were still trapped inside the apartments. Sterling and Rock Falls officers and Whiteside County Sheriff’s Deputies pulled a girl out of a window by backing a squad car up to a second-floor window.

When the Sterling and Rock Falls Firefighters were able to get in the building, they found a woman in one apartment and two girls in another apartment. Firefighters and EMS tried life-saving measures on them but they were unsuccessful. Carrie Hose, 49, of Sterling; Shyla Walker , 8, of Davenport; and Celina Serrano , 13, of Sterling; were all pronounced dead at the scene.

Attorneys in the courtroom Thursday said civil proceedings will continue in the case.

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