Neighbors recall Scottdale fire victim as quiet, 'eccentric'

Neighbors remember Thomas Zeller as a somewhat eccentric man who pursued a low-tech lifestyle. Zeller, 71, died Saturday when flames destroyed his Scottdale home.

“It’s a sad thing,” Market Street resident Chuck Brownfield said Sunday. “He didn’t really associate with a lot of people, he never bothered anybody.”

According to Westmoreland County Coroner Tim Carson, the fire broke out at about 5 p.m. at 918 Market St. and Zeller was pronounced dead after he was located by emergency responders about 90 minutes later.

A ruling on the cause of death is pending results from an autopsy, scheduled for Monday, Carson said.

Brownfield counted Zeller as an acquaintance. “He was just a little bit eccentric, but he was a nice guy,” he said. “He said he had the cure for cancer.”

Zeller drew some criticism when vegetation in his yard became overgrown and maintenance of the home was lacking, according to neighbors.

Brownfield said he noticed the stairs to the loft were in poor shape when he recently stepped inside the house to give notice of some chairs that were intended for delivery there but had been incorrectly addressed.

In 2012, Zeller billed himself as a holistic healer who was living off food grown in his yard, but borough officials deemed that the property needed to be cleaned up and issued a citation.

Zeller served a one-to-two-year prison sentence in the late 1990s for growing marijuana plants in his Market Street home. During his trial, Zeller maintained he grew the marijuana for medicinal purposes and said the Bible allowed him to do so.

‘Rustic building’

Zeller appeared to have encountered health problems, with ambulances recently arriving at his home several times, Brownfield said. “I really haven’t seen him hardly all summer.”

In the past, when Zeller was in better health, Brownfield said, he could be seen riding a bicycle through town and his pursuits included making his own beer and wine and gardening. He said Zeller at one time would share his harvest with Brownfield’s nearby father-in-law, and Brownfield, in turn, offered Zeller leftover crops from his garden.

Another neighbor, Tim Wesolowski, recalled seeing Zeller trimming weeds in his yard and maintaining a woodpile at the rear of the home.

“They always went through a considerable amount of firewood,” Wesolowski said. “Even through the summer, you would sometimes see smoke coming out of the chimney. It’s a pretty rustic building.”

Next-door neighbor David Darulla was among those who reported Saturday’s fire to 911.

He said he was watching football on TV when “I heard a really wild popping sound. I looked out my front window and I saw flames just shooting out of the roof of (Zeller’s) house.”

Darulla said he heard a woman who escaped the fire talking with her rescuer while “the flames started getting really bad. I heard him ask her, ‘Is there anyone else in the house?’ and she said, ‘Yes, upstairs.’

“At that point, you could tell that person had no chance.”

Darulla said the fatal fire left his family shaken. “It was scary,” he said. “You could feel the heat off of it.”

The extent of the woman’s injuries wasn’t known. TribLive news partner WTAE reported two responding firefighters went to a local hospital for treatment of minor burns.

“There was heavy fire on arrival, from pretty much the ground floor through the roof,” Jim Echard, safety officer with the Scottdale Fire Department, told WTAE.

Additional details weren’t immediately available from firefighters. The fire also is being investigated by police, the Westmoreland County District Attorney’s office and the state police fire marshal.

Neighbors credited a fast response by firefighters and weather that was calm instead of windy for containing flames to the Zeller property.

Some vinyl siding melted on a corner of Darulla’s home closest to the neighboring blaze. “If those firefighters weren’t so fast, we’d be dealing with something similar over here,” he said.