WA - Two adults & two children die in fire, front door barricaded, 11 yr old girl climbs out window for help, Seattle, 3 Sep 2023

[imstilla.grandma]

Four people, including a child and infant, were found dead inside a home that was engulfed in flames with the front door blocked, local police said.

An 11-year-old child called police around 8:40 a.m. PDT on Saturday to report that there was a dead person inside her house in Seattle, Washington's Wallingford neighborhood, according to the Seattle Police Department (SPD).

The child reportedly told police that she escaped from a home on North 48th Street by climbing through a window and running to a neighbor's house to call for help, Seattle police Chief Adrian Diaz said during a news conference with local media shortly after the incident.

The SPD posted on X, formerly Twitter, that officers were responding to a reported shooting Saturday morning, but after arriving at the scene, police found the residence engulfed in flames. Diaz said he could not confirm if anyone at the home was shot.

Police arrived at the home within five minutes of the child's 911 call but were unable to open the front door and realized the house was on fire, Diaz said.

"We do know that the front door was barricaded with some sort of object that officers were trying to kick down to try and open up the front door," Diaz said. "There also was the fire going on. So, they were overcome by smoke, so they ended up retreating and that's when we started working in conjunction with the fire department."

Children, 2 adults found dead in burning home with door barricaded: police

An 11-year-old child reportedly escaped the blaze through a window and fled to a neighbor's house to call 911.

www.newsweek.com

 

[OldCop]

Was the door barricaded from inside or out? Was this a murder suicide or did someone else want to kill the family?
If the door was barricaded from inside, then, unless the victims were incapacitated in some way, couldn’t one of them have moved the barricade to escape?

 

[borndem]

Odd. Why the barricade?

 

[tlcya]

Neighbors are still unsure what happened around the time an 11-year-old girl escaped the house in the 1000 block of North 48th Street, two blocks south of Woodland Park, and contacted a neighbor. The call to 911 came shortly before 9 a.m., Saturday, reporting someone had died in the home that had become enveloped in flames.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...earch-for-answers-after-4-found-dead-in-fire/

Earlier this week, the King County Medical Examiner's Office identified the man found in the burned home as Salvatore Ragusa. Officials said Ragusa died by suicide and the cause of death was acute asphyxia, inhalation of toxic products of combustion, and smoke inhalation.

Because the medical examiner said he died by suicide and the cause was smoke inhalation, it's presumed that Ragusa started the fire.
Family remembers mother, young children found dead in Wallingford house fire

Four people died in the house fire in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood on Saturday: A father, Salvatore Ragusa, 48, mother, Lana Stewart, 40, and two children, Sebastiano Ragusa, 7, and Valentina Ragusa, 4 months.
[snip]
Salvatore Ragusa died by suicide, the medical examiner said. Lana Stewart died by “multiple sharp force injuries.” The baby died from smoke inhalation; the boy died of “asphyxia, inhalation of toxic products of combustion.”
Understanding 'familicide' after Seattle's murder-suicide in Wallingford

I hope the surviving 11 year old got all thesupport needed to absorb the loss and address any possible survivor's guilt.

 

[amandab]

Odd. Why the barricade?

I wondered if it was a hoarding type of situation

 

[tlcya]

The adult male domestic partner of household killed a mother and her two children. He barricaded the door to kill the children by fire after stabbing their mom, setting the fire. He died in the fire as well. Had the 11 year old not made it out a window he'd have killed the entire family.