SODUS TOWNSHIP (WKZO AM/FM) — The names of the young victims in that motel fire in Berrien County have now been released as autopsies are planned on their bodies.
County Chief Deputy Robert Boyce says the cause remains under investigation but appears to be accidental, related to a faulty appliance on the first floor.
He says dead are 26-year-old Kiarre Curtis and five of her children, Marquise, Gerome, Samuel, Savod and Avery. They range in age from 2 to 10.
Their father and her husband, 36-year-old Samuel Curtis barely made it out alive with their one year old daughter. They are both hospitalized. Boyce says Curtis is heartbroken.
The fire did not start in their apartment, but it appears that all of them suffocated because of the smoke that filled their rooms while they slept.
Police are also investigating the apparent lack of working smoke detectors at the Cosmo Extended Living Motel on M-139 in Sodus Township. The structure predates the requirement for sprinklers.
The Red Cross has set up a shelter for the occupants of the other 26 apartments that were being rented at the time the early Saturday morning fire broke out.
