WHEELING, W.Va. — A mother, her two young sons and the family dog may have been asleep when the fire that claimed their lives started late Sunday night on Wheeling’s McColloch Street.
Tracy Daugherty, 29, a clerk at Ohio County Circuit Court, and her two young sons, Javon and Jaiden, died in the flames, neighbors said.
“Anytime you have one fatality, it’s not a good story, but three brings a heavy heart to, not only the family there, but it affects the firefighters, it affects the neighbors,” said Philip Stahl, public information officer for the Wheeling Police Department.
Investigators with the Wheeling Police Department, Wheeling Fire Department and West Virginia Fire Marshal’s Office remained at the fire scene as of late Monday morning.
Foul play had been ruled out as a cause for the blaze which someone outside of the home first reported with a call to 911 after 12 a.m. Monday.
“The windows are broken out, the structure is charred heavily in the front area and that’s where the fire is believed to have started,” Stahl told MetroNews after spending the night at the fire scene with other first responders.
Though no final determination of the cause had been made, he said the fire was possibly electrical in nature, beginning somewhere along a wall between the 1st and 2nd floors of the home where a bedroom was believed to be located.
During the fire, part of the 2nd floor collapsed onto the 1st floor.
“The house was severely damaged which does put a hindrance on the investigation itself because there’s not much left to determine what caused it and where exactly it ignited,” Stahl said.
Stahl said there was no early evidence of working smoke detectors being positioned within the home.
Damage to nearby homes was limited by the work of Wheeling firefighters which continued into the early hours Monday as neighbors and others watched in a growing crowd.
“It’s a small-knit community. People know one another, so anytime something like this happens, it’s a tragedy for all,” Stahl said.
The boys were in the first and second grades, authorities said.