By SARAH CAMPBELL
Leader staff writer
The Jacksonville Housing Authority claims the smoke detector at the apartment where a family of five was found dead had been inspected seven times in the past year and it was found to be working on those occasions.
Marilyn Beavers, 30, and her four children — Dequan Singleton, 10, Sydni Singleton, 9, Haylee Beavers, 6, and Emily Beavers, 4 — died in their home at 3A S. Simmons Drive on March 22 from smoke inhalation.
According to an extensive report released to The Leader in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, “unattended cooking” caused the fire and the deaths were accidental. A pot with burned residue was found on the stove and the burner was still on when the victims were found.
Funderland Singleton, the fiancé of the mother and father of her children, said he is pursuing a lawsuit against the city and the JHA.
William M. Griffin III with Friday, Eldridge and Clark law firm of Little Rock, the attorney for the JHA, which oversees the low-income housing complex, provided work orders from Jan. 26 and six others from 2011. The documents indicate that the detector was checked and it was working when main tenance men came to the home to make several repairs requested by Marilyn Beavers.
The alarm should have been replaced in 2003, according to a warning on the device. According to the report, the wires were cut, and it didn’t have a backup battery.
The JHA maintenance workers told police the smoke alarm was sounding when they went inside the apartment, but it “failed to operate,” according to the report.
Griffin wrote in an e-mail to The Leader, “We have not seen the detector or base since the fire. It is our understanding that after the fire, the base and electrical box for the detector were cut out of the ceiling by the police. Hence, the wires were cut in order to take evidence.”
But, according to the report, the device was found on the floor just inside the doorway of a bedroom. The reports state that exposed wires were protruding from the back and there was an electrical socket with wires on the ceiling in the hallway.
The device was warped by heat. But the report states that the wires had been cut rather than melted, and the items were on the floor early in the fire.
According to the report, JHA executive director Phil Nix contacted the police department on March 23, the day after the tragedy, to ask when the JHA could send its private investigators into the home.
Singleton also hired a private investigator to find out what happened to his family.
Nix declined to be interviewed and, in an e-mail to The Leader, said he had no comment.
City officials have been advised by the city attorney not to discuss the incident. Administrator Jim Durham said the JHA is more closely related to the federal government.
The city approves appointments to its board but doesn’t have access to its funds.
The board meets at 7:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month at the Max Howell Place administrative office. But this month’s meeting was postponed because several members were out of town, according to the JHA office.
The next meeting will be at 5 p.m. Thursday.
The fire department first arrived at the apartment at 5:50 a.m. after a neighbor reported smelling smoke. The time of death for the five victims was between 2:21 and 5:46 a.m.
The firefighters left when they found no sign of a fire. But they didn’t go inside apartment 3A. They assumed the odor was from another fire across the highway. Maintenance workers found the bodies around 7 a.m.
The fire had gone out by the time firefighters arrived for a second time at 7:30 a.m.
According to the report, Marilyn Beavers might have tried to put out the blaze because her arms were burned.
An internal investigation into the incident is underway.
