Pair charged in fiery death of children

In life the brother and the sister were undeniably close.

They remained that way in death, laid to rest in the same small, white casket.

At the Corinthian Baptist Church in Houma a blue and a pink teddy bear sat atop it Monday morning as the Rev. Ronald Washington spoke of how death does not discriminate.

The children, Romell Welsh Jr., 2 and Ro’Miyah Welsh, 1, died March 15 in a fire that engulfed the wooden house at 530 Hobson St. where they were left alone and defenseless.

During the services Monday, the youngsters’ parents, Romell Welsh Sr. and Vaneshia Valentine, listened intently to the preacher’s words, mourning along with friends and loved ones.

As the services continued, law enforcement officials went about their business, seeking to have warrants signed by a judge that would result in both being charged with crimes.

“We are trying to determine specific charges,” Lt. Dana Coleman of the Houma Police Department said early Monday. “This is a sad occasion for everybody.”

District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr. and his staff determined that charges of manslaughter and child neglect were appropriate and fit the facts. Warrants were issued Monday within hours of the childrens’ burials, signed by District Judge Randy Bethancourt, with bonds of $1 million each.

According to accounts given to authorities, it was Romell Sr. who first left the house, following a dispute with Vaneshia.

She left the house shortly thereafter seeking him out. According to direct statements from Romell Sr., he and Vaneshia were together near Lafayette Street and Tunnel Boulevard when she got a call that the house was on fire. He said they ran back to the wooden home on Hobson Street.

Based on statements they were given, police said that clearly if they were going to charge one parent, they would charge the other.

Each of them, according to the presentations prosecutors will make, had a responsibility to see that the children were not left alone.

Vaneshia, suspecting that she might be a target of prosecutors, told Romell Sr. last week that she had sought out an attorney. But the grieving father did not suspect he himself would also be charged. He did not live in the house that burned, his relatives had stated, and was not on its lease.

But his first-person account of what happened conflict with that assertion.

On the night of the fire, Romell Sr. said he asked Vaneshia to put his boxers on top of the kitchen stove after laundering, to use its oven’s heat as a dryer since the family did not have one in the house.

Romell Sr. said he fell asleep and was later awakened by Vaneshia who told him his boxers had caught on fire while on the stovetop, and that, according to his account, was when sparks flew between them.

Deputy Chief Brant Thompson with the Louisiana State Fire Marshal said their investigation quickly pointed to the kitchen as the site of origin for the fire with their focus on a trash can in that area.

“Through interviews, we’ve learned some items of clothing had caught fire and were discarded in that trash can. It is unclear as to why the items of clothing actually caught fire and the investigation is still active at this time,” Thompson said Monday.

Looking dazed from the events as he spoke in his mother’s kitchen last week, Romell Sr. said he wanted to leave the Hobson Street residence before the situation got out of hand since the relationship was already going through a rough patch.

“I took heed and walked away from my problem,” he said.

When Vaneshia realized he was leaving, Romell said she decided that he was not leaving alone, fearing he would cheat on her.

The exact time they left the residence could not be remembered among the events that took place that night.

Rommel Sr. said there were often accusations of each other cheating, with the most recent accusation stemming from Vaneshia’s alleged behavior while he served in the parish jail for the possession of crack cocaine. Welsh said he was released from jail the Monday before the fire.

As he took off on foot that night toward the BP gas station at Barataria Avenue and Tunnel Boulevard, she followed him.

Once there, Romell said, Vaneshia was mad at him and sat down next to the gas pumps as he walked away from her. Romell said he went to his aunt’s house nearby. When Vaneshia arrived, he began walking toward the Hobson Street residence.

As the two neared Allie’s Figure and Day Spa, he heard Vaneshia receive a phone call informing her that the house was on fire.

“I ran all the way home nonstop,” Romell Sr. said. “When I got home, I saw somebody kicked the front door in, so I dived in the window and searched the beds where they were at and looked a little bit on the floor.”

Footage of the fire, which appeared on HTV’s “The Beat” over the weekend, however, told a slightly different story. Romell Sr. is seen reaching in a bedroom window, pulling a fully engulfed blanket from the burning house and being pulled back by a Houma police officer. Firefighters were not yet on the scene.

Houma Fire Inspector Mike Millet said three fire trucks responded within minutes of the first call at 1:32 Saturday morning. It took approximately 30 minutes to extinguish the blaze.

A few days after the fire, Romell Sr. displayed burn marks on his arms and fingers from his attempt to reach inside the room where his children slept.

Romell Sr. said he does not blame Vaneshia for what happened, but said, “Maybe if she would have stayed home, she could have prevented it because she wasn’t going to bed.”

The Tri-Parish Times was able to contact Vaneshia Welsh, but attempts to set up an interview never progressed to a final meeting.

Romell Sr. said he and Vaneshia have known each other for more than nine years, and when his children came into the world, he did everything he could to help provide for them by working at McDonald’s and Rouses, simultaneously.

“I’ve been trying to break my neck knowing that she was not able to do it by herself,” he said. “I did whatever was in my power to take care of my kids and the household.”

In the days since the couple’s initial interview with investigators last week, Romell Sr. said mid-week he and Vaneshia hadn’t talked. Monday, the pair walked together into Corinthian Baptist Church to say a final goodbye to their children.

“I tried to talk with her about the kids, but she doesn’t want to talk about it,” Romell Sr. said.

“I’m trying my best to deal with something so serious,” he said about what happened that night. “I see babies crying in certain places and it’s messing with me. I remember when my children cried. I love my kids with all my heart and I did everything in the world to make it a perfect family.”

A donation account was established on youcaring.com with Vaneshia Welsh as the beneficiary. Listed under the name of Ro’Miyah and Romell Jr., the account collected $1,209 as of Monday afternoon.

The manslaughter charge, said Assistant District Attorney Carlos Lazarus, was based on the fact that a death occurred during the commission of a misdemeanor.

The misdemeanor, child desertion, is “the intentional or criminally negligent exposure of a child under the age of 10 years, by a person who has the care, custody, or control of the child, to a hazard or danger against which the child cannot reasonably be expected to protect himself, or the desertion or abandonment of such child, knowing or having reason to believe that the child could be exposed to such hazard or danger.”

ChildrenFILE PHOTO