ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602060018
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
THE COMMONWEALTH'S ATTORNEY wants to be sure that no one bears criminal responsibility for a fire that killed 5.
Two weeks after a fire killed five people in a Southeast Roanoke house, police have been called in to gather more facts.
Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell asked detectives to take statements from witnesses and establish what happened before, during and after the fire.
"I have no reason not to believe this isn't an accident," Caldwell said. "But I need to have an investigation of the fire to determine if there is anyone to blame and if there is any criminal responsibility."
Caldwell's investigation is the latest development in a case that has raised questions about who is responsible for the safety of tenants, particularly when there are apparent violations of city and building regulations.
First, city officials said they would not cite the owner of the house at 1228 Stewart Ave. S.E. The next day they reconsidered and turned the case over to Caldwell to review the possibility of criminal charges.
Caldwell said he sees no apparent criminal intent. It is not unusual for the commonwealth's attorney to investigate in such a situation, he said.
Just after 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 20, Patricia Leftwich smelled smoke in the two-story house. Leftwich was in an upstairs living room with her mother and four children, according to a fire report. She walked downstairs to see what was happening.
The duplex had been partitioned into a triplex, an apparent violation of the city zoning code. Leftwich's mother, Goldie Christine Duncan, lived upstairs. Leftwich and her four children - Mark, 6; Clyde, 5; Patrick, 4; Nancy, 3 - lived in the two downstairs apartments.
Leftwich had to walk downstairs, through one of the apartments, then outside and through another door, to reach the apartment where she smelled smoke.
She saw fire in the kitchen and made her way back outside and through the adjoining first-floor apartment. But flames blocked the stairwell - the only entrance to the second-floor apartment. She was unable to get back upstairs to her family.
Duncan, 46, tried to break a window in the upstairs' living room. But the window was covered with a thin wire mesh and she was unable to smash the glass, according to the fire report.
A neighbor saw her trying to get out. But Duncan, who had asthma, quickly succumbed to the heat and smoke.
Mark Leftwich Sr. arrived at his ex-wife's house shortly after the firefighters. He had left just 10 minutes earlier, after spending the evening with his children.
Leftwich said his ex-wife had asked him to deliver some diapers, and he stayed to wrestle with his boys. When he got there his daughter, Nancy, was already asleep upstairs.
"Before I even got up the steps it was, 'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,'" he recalled. "I slipped my arm around Mark and picked him up. The best time I had playing with those kids was that night wrestling with them. None of them cried or nothing."
Just before he left about 9:15 p.m., Leftwich said, he went to the bathroom and checked a heater that had been placed near some pipes to keep them from freezing.
"I didn't smell no smoke," he said. "I went to the bathroom. The boys followed me. I felt the heater and the heater wasn't hot. I didn't smell nothing. I stopped in the kitchen to make sure the light was off. Patricia was taking the boys upstairs to watch 'Rescue 911.'"
Leftwich got into his car and left. As he neared the town of Vinton, he heard the fire call over the scanner in his car.
"I flew back," he said.
The former volunteer firefighter pulled on the protective gear he kept in his car. But he was unable to help.
The firefighters "had already pulled Markie out of the house," he said. "I saw flames coming out of the rear of the house and smoke out of the front. After I found out my kids were in there, I lost it."
When firefighters responded they found four of the five family members dead in the upstairs living room.
Clyde and Nancy were at one end of the room. Near the stairwell, they found Duncan lying by her two grandchildren - Mark and Patrick. Mark was barely alive.
Firefighters rushed the boy to waiting rescue workers, but he was dead on arrival at Community Hospital of Roanoke Valley.
The five victims died from inhaling toxic smoke that fire investigators believe reached more than 700 degrees. One breath would have been enough to knock them unconscious and sear their lungs.
The fire was most intense in the rear of the house. When Patricia Leftwich opened the front door to the downstairs apartment where it began, the oxygen she let in created what firefighters call a backdraft, said Roanoke City Assistant Fire Marshal Marlan Morris.
The fire erupted, rolling up the wall, into the ceiling and to the upstairs apartment.
"It happened within a matter of minutes," he said.
Morris said he is unsure how long the fire smoldered before someone discovered it.
Within the first hour after it was extinguished, fire marshals walked through the scene. A fire leaves a trail and investigators work backward - from the area of least burn to the area of most burn, Morris said.
The front of the house was virtually untouched by fire, as was the upstairs living room where the victims were found. But fire damage was heavy in the downstairs kitchen, where temperatures likely exceeded 1,000 degrees - a characteristic of electrical fires.
Near a kitchen electrical outlet was a burn pattern on the wall in the shape of a "V." The point of that "V" is like an arrow directing an investigator to the fire's origin, Morris said.
It pointed to an extension cord on the kitchen floor. The fire had melted parts of the linoleum, exposing and burning the floor boards.
The plug was melted into the kitchen outlet. Investigators believe an electrical heater was plugged into the extension cord, but they could not find the connection between the two.
All the evidence suggests an accident. Morris said investigators believe the heater overpowered the extension cord, melting the normally insulated wires and causing a short.
Once the fire ignited, it had numerous sources of fuel. The family was in the process of moving to another house in Southeast Roanoke, so rugs and clothing were piled in the kitchen.
There was no fire wall between the two downstairs apartments, another apparent building code violation. A fire wall is usually made of nonflammable material, and often will help contain a fire.
In the Stewart Avenue house, the partition between the units was a pressboard made of sawdust and glue - two ingredients that would have made the fire burn very hot and vigorously, Morris said.
Fire investigators also found no evidence of smoke detectors in the house. That, too, was in violation of a little-publicized city ordinance passed in 1994.
"We are not in a position to say 100 percent that there were no smoke detectors," Morris said. "But if they were there, there was no indication that they operated."
Each time the fire was given oxygen - through an opened front door, ventilation in the ceiling, a breakthrough to the adjoining unit - it burned faster.
Fire investigators have not spoken with the landlords. Salem-based WTS of Virginia Inc., which owns the home, is run by William T. Stone and Rupert J. Richards Jr. Last week, Stone said he will not comment until the city's investigation is complete.
Investigators also have not interviewed Patricia Leftwich.
Barring any unforeseen developments, Morris said his investigation is essentially complete.
"We are relatively comfortable with what we found," he said.
Morris said his office will assist police with any of their requests.
Authorities emphasized that they are not conducting an arson investigation. Typically, if fire investigators believe a fire has been set, they will alert the police. In this case, Morris said, there was no indication of arson.
Caldwell said he expects a report will not be complete for quite some time.
"I'm asking [detectives] to take witness statements and see if they concur with the findings so far," he said, "and whether anyone bears criminal responsibility for failure to have safety devices or for arson. But I will not speculate until I see the report."
Staff writer S.D. Harrington contributed information to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 161 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. The fire at the house on Stewartby CNBAvenue SE has raised questions about who is responsible for tenant
safety. 2. In a 1994 Christmas photo are (from left) Patrick, Clyde,
Mark and Nancy Leftwich. The siblings and their grandmother, Goldie
Christine Duncan, died in the fire. color. KEYWORDS: FATALITY