Colonels win 1, then fall in Southland Conference Quarterfinals
March 19, 2014
Edwards joins widening Dist. 6 field
March 19, 2014
A large memorial of stuffed animals and balloons make their presence known in front of a charred home where two young children once lived.
The community in central Houma continues to mourn the lives of 2-year-old Romell Welsh Jr. and 1-year-old Ro’Miya Welsh who were killed in a residential fire at 530 Hobson St. on Saturday morning.
As neighbors continue to pay their respects at the location of the fire, many of them remain upset by the site of the tragedy and the young lives lost too soon.
Kizzy Rice lives across the street from the Welsh’s and said every time she walks out of her home, she is reminded of what took place.
“Everybody knew the kids, everybody loved them,” Rice said. “Having to walk outside and see it every morning is tough.”
Rice’s daughter woke her Saturday in frenzy about the fire.
“When they woke me up, I grabbed my fire extinguisher from the house,” Rice said. “I wasn’t thinking it was a fire that big. We were trying to get them out of there, but the fire wouldn’t let us.”
Investigators with the Louisiana State Fire Marshal’s office had not identified how the fire started, but said it appeared to begin in the kitchen at the back of the house. Rice agreed, noting the back of the small wooden home was completely engulfed in flames when she arrived.
Several neighbors notified Houma Police at approximately 1:30 a.m., warning that people were possibly still inside, authorities said.
Rice said she noticed the windows in the back of the house were broken, but the windows at the front of the house where the Welsh children were sleeping were still intact.
Bonita Welsh, the children’s grandmother, who also lives across the street, said on the night of the fire, she heard a lot of people screaming. She rushed to her window to see what was wrong.
“When I went outside to see, I saw the fire shooting out of the windows of the back part of the house,” Welsh said.
For the family, knowing what caused the fire is the not their biggest concern as much as learning why the children were reportedly left alone in the house.
Welsh said the children’s mother, Vaneshia Welsh, didn’t arrive at the scene for some time. At some point, she told her mother there had been a problem with the stove.
“Two days before the fire, (Vaneshia and the children’s father, Romell Welsh) said the stove caught on fire and they put it out, but she didn’t report it,” the grandmother said.
“They didn’t think anything of it. And two nights after that (Vaneshia left) the kids in the house by themselves with the stove on and you knew they had a gas leak?” Bonita Welsh questioned.
According to Bonita Welsh, her daughter had the stove on to warm the house Saturday night. She reportedly left and locked her doors with her children inside to find Romell Welsh Sr. at a nearby gas station.
According to family and neighbors, Saturday was not the first time Vaneshia left the children unattended.
“No telling how long they were left alone because it’s not the first time,” the children’s great-grandmother Linda Young said. “The gas leak is not our interest. It’s about her leaving them in there by themselves when she knew the conditions.”
Neighbors reported hearing screams coming from inside the house during the fire, and although they broke the window in the children’s bedroom, their attempts to help them were unsuccessful.
As the family prepared to bury the two Welsh children, they shared memories of the infant and toddler siblings.
Bonita Welsh said the children would spend a lot of their time at her house, which made Romell a “grandma’s boy” and Ro’Miya a “grandpa’s girl.” Toys with no one to play with them sat Monday in the corners of Welsh’s home.
She said Romell was a smart baby and she knows he did what he could to protect his sister during the fire.
“He loved his little sister. He was very friendly and smart,” Bonita Welsh said, as her family agreed. “I know if that door wouldn’t have been locked, he would have got out and ran across here.”
The Terrebonne Parish Coroner’s Office reported the children’s cause of death as smoke inhalation.
Houma Fire Inspector Mike Millet said the investigation has led them to pinpoint the kitchen as the origin of the fire, but the exact cause remains unknown.
“We do know the origin at this point, but we don’t know how it started just yet,” Millet said.
He said it took firefighters approximately 30 minutes to get the blaze under control, which left many of the surrounding trees charred.
Lt. Dana Coleman, Houma Police spokesman, said the parents talked to investigators at the police station on Monday.
“Right now we are in the fact-gathering stage,” he said. “We’ll make an assumption once we interview all the witnesses and have gathered all the facts.”
Coleman said it was brought to their attention the children’s mother was not present at the time of the fire, but “all of that is still being investigated at the time.”
On Monday, the smell of the weekend’s deadly blaze remained prominent at 530 Hobson St. while neighbors and community members continued to stop and place toys, stuffed animals and patron saint candles along the sidewalk.
“They were some beautiful kids and they were always happy,” Rice remembered. “It’s a bad tragedy.”
And at a time when Romell Jr. and Ro’Miya would be watching their favorite cartoons Caillou or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse at Welsh’s home, the family gathered, remembering the “characters” the children were.
The grandmother and her family watched a video of Romell Jr. dancing in her living room. They all knew he would be dancing in that moment if he were still with them.
A donation account to support the family has been opened at youcaring.com under the name Ro’Miya and Romell Jr. As of Monday afternoon, $1,009 had been raised toward the $5,000 goal.
Neighbor Ron Williams drops toys off Monday in front of the skeleton of a burned out home on Hobson Street in Houma. A faulty gas stove is suspected for setting the home ablaze, trapping Romell Jr., 2, and Ro’Miya Welsh, 1, inside, authorities said. Family members told the Tri-Parish Times the children were locked inside the residence alone at the time of the fire, an assertion authorities were continuing to investigate at press time.
