Child Playing With Cigarette Lighter May Have Started Deadly Fairmount Fire That Killed A Dozen, Including Eight Children

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

According to police reports, a five-year-old child has repeatedly confessed that he was playing with his mother's cigarette lighter when he set a Christmas tree on fire, igniting the Fairmount rowhouse fire that killed a dozen victims, including eight children.

The child was transported by medics to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was reported to have no apparent injuries. On the way to the hospital the child told  a Philadelphia Fire Department paramedic "several times" that he had accidentally set the Christmas tree on fire.

Homicide detectives who interviewed the child briefly at CHOP, said the child told them he was playing with his "mother's orange cigarette lighter" when the Christmas tree went up in flames. When the detectives interviewed the child, he was accompanied by hospital staffers from CHOP, who said the child told them the same story.

The three-story brick rowhouse at 869 N. 23rd Street is owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. According to page 15 of PHA's Housing Quality Standards Inspection Resource Guide, the house should have been equipped with "At least one battery-operated or hard-wired smoke detector [that] must be present and working on each level of the unit, including the basement." 

But none of at least four smoke detectors, which were supposed to be inspected annually by PHA, were working when the fire struck. In addition, the house, which included only two apartments, was crammed with 26 residents.

Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy told Fox 29 that 18 people were staying in the upstairs apartment on the second and third floors, and eight more staying in the downstairs apartment, which included the first floor and part of the second floor.

Only 14 of the 26 made it out to safety.

When police and firefighters arrived at the scene yesterday morning, they found a female child victim, approximately three or four years old, on the third floor landing. Three other female victims were found in a middle rear bedroom. Six victims, all children, were found in the front middle bedroom. An adult female victim was found in the front bedroom.

In addition, two dogs were found dead in a cage in a bedroom on the third floor.

A resident of the house identified as Tyhara Woods, 30, was interviewed by police at St. Christopher's Hospital. She stated she had lived for ten years at 869 N. 23rd Street in Apartment B with her children's father, Charles Scott, 32, and their three male children, age 6, 7 and 13. 

Woods told the cops that the occupants of Apartment B at 869 N. 23rd St. included Rose McDonald and six minor children; Jen McDonald and four minor children; and Jen's boyfriend, identified as Pooda. A third sister may have also resided there with additional children, Woods told the police.

At approximately 6:30 a.m. yesterday, Woods told the police, she was in bed with Scott when she heard "yelling and screaming" coming from upstairs, and a female screaming, "Oh, my God!"

When she got up, Woods smelled smoke. She woke up her three sons, sleeping in the bedroom next door, and they fled the property through the front door. On the way out, Scott grabbed a four-year-old boy from Apartment B, who was standing at the door, and carried him out the door.

Woods said two of her sons were treated and released at St. Christopher's Hospital for minor burns to the head and arm. 

Another resident of 869 N. 23rd St., Howard Robinson, 37, told fire marshals and detectives that he resided at the PHA house on the third floor with multiple family members. At approximately 6:35 a.m. yesterday, he was awakened by screaming and the sounds of people running around.

He opened his bedroom door and immediately encountered heavy smoke and fire. He closed the door and ran to the front windows of the third floor front bedroom. He attempted to lower himself to the ground while hanging on the sill ledge, but fell all the way down to the sidewalk.

Robinson told fire marshals and detectives that he began screaming to his girlfriend to throw a child out the window, but neither she nor the child were able to get out alive.