Man, woman and 4-year-old girl killed in apartment fire in Clinton, Missouri
Two adults and a 4-year-old girl were killed early Tuesday when a fast-moving fire swept through their apartment in Clinton, Missouri, according to fire officials.
The bright light of flames coming from the apartment building in the 100 block of South Third Street woke neighbor Jordan Mothersbaugh, who lives across the street in the same apartment complex.
It was after 2 a.m. when Mothersbaugh saw the fire tearing through the roof and bursting from the windows of the apartment near hers. She could hear the blaze’s roar, she recalled.
“The flames were just vicious,” she said. “They looked huge. It was just unreal.”
Firefighters were already on the way, she was told.
Firefighters arrived shortly after 2:20 a.m. and reported seeing heavy smoke and fire pouring from the roof and windows on the southwest corner of the building, Clinton Fire Chief Leo Huff said. It took firefighters about 20 minutes to bring the blaze under control.
Three dead
First responders ultimately found 45-year-old Ernest McConville, his 27-year-old girlfriend, Taylor Briggs, and her 4-year-old daughter, Adriyana McCloud, dead inside the apartment, Assistant Fire Chief Mark Manuel said.
McConville and Briggs had been dating for about three years, his daughter, Michaela Starr, said at the scene. He left behind seven children and she left behind a son, according to Starr and an obituary.
Starr learned of the fire when she got a call at 5 a.m. from a sister. For now, her family is trying to keep their heads up, she said. She went through the apartment hours later to salvage what she could. Then she broke down.
“It looks like charcoal,” she said of the apartment. “It looks like lava.”
The fire started in the unit where the victims were found but flames spread to the apartment unit directly below. Two other units were damaged by smoke. No other injuries were reported.
Manuel guessed the fire could have started 30 minutes to an hour before firefighters were called to the scene because of the time of day and how few people live in the building.
While a cause of the fire has not been determined, Manuel said the blaze appeared to be accidental. There were smoke detectors in the apartment, but by the time firefighters arrived, they were not sounding, so it was unclear if they had been working, he said.
The Missouri State Fire Marshal is leading the investigation.
This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 9:39 AM.
