Willie Carter said he thinks he must have drifted off to sleep when he heard the 5-year-old boy’s voice saying the apartment was on fire.
Everything after that feels like a nightmare, the 29-year-old Carter said. Remembering the blaze that killed three children in Gary on Christmas Eve, Carter said he got out of bed and tried to follow the boy’s voice, thinking it might have come from downstairs in the two-story apartment. But he couldn’t make it all the way down the stairs as he saw big, yellow flames all around him, he said.
"It was moving so fast, and I felt like I was moving so slow," Carter, of Gary, said.
Three young cousins, Jayden Mitchell, 5, A’laya Pickens, 4, and Yaleah Cohen, 2, died in the Dec. 23 apartment fire that went into the early hours of Christmas Eve in the 4400 block of West 23rd Court, in the Oak Knoll Apartments in Gary.
It’s hard for Carter to think about that night and about how the children must have suffered, he said.
"I wish I could’ve saved the kids. I just feel so bad," Carter said.
In the days after, the Gary Fire Department ruled the fire an arson, with the cause listed as "incendiary by an unknown person or persons," according to a report from the department.
Carter said after he couldn’t get to the first floor he turned around and headed back upstairs to try looking for the children who were in the apartment. But, he was met with more smoke and more flames, he said. When he made one last attempt downstairs, the smoke and flames had gotten worse, he said. It all became hazy, as he inhaled the fumes.
Firefighters would later find the children upstairs, one at the top of the stairs and two together in a bedroom.
One of the firefighters first on the scene described what he found as "catastrophic conditions" as "the floor was on fire in the living room" and flames were coming out of the second-story windows, according to a Gary Fire Department report. As firefighters got inside and fought flames to get to the second floor, they saw a "glowing red line," which they later figured out was a metal hand railing, leading up the stairway, the report says.
Willie Carter Provided by Willie Carter Willie Carter. Willie Carter. (Provided by Willie Carter)
Carter said he could start to feel his hair sizzling, and he didn’t know it until he got outside later, but he had caught on fire as he was trying to make his way around the apartment.
"The fire was just real strong. I never experienced anything like it," he said.
Carter was one of two adults — the other his wife, Yoasha Carter, the mother of Mitchell and Pickens — to make it out of the fire at the apartment where they had been visiting for the holidays. Carter was burned in the fire and was hospitalized in the days after. His arm is still bandaged as he recuperates in Decatur, Ill.
At one point, he said, he told his wife to jump out the second-story window. Before he was able to get out the window, Carter said he thought he was "going to die." He dangled from the ledge for a bit before landing on the cold ground with his 1-year-old daughter in his hands, he said. Gary police and fire officials declined to discuss details of the case.
"As I was on the ground, everything was spinning, and I felt very weak," he said.
Carter said he thinks he must have passed out for a few seconds before he got in a vehicle to stay warm until an ambulance arrived and transported him to a hospital. He said he cried when he woke up later in a hospital bed and realized what happened.
"I just cried for the kids that couldn’t be saved," Carter said.
The report details what investigators found in the days after. The walls were blistered and charred. Siding had melted on the outside of the house. Soot lined window and door frames.
Three children were killed and at least one person was injured late Friday, Dec. 23, 2016 in an apartment fire in the 4400 block of West 23rd Court in Gary.
(Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune)
The Lake County Coroner’s Office said it could be a few more weeks for test results to have a definitive cause and manner of death for each of the children, according to Chief Deputy Coroner Scott Sefton.
As fire department investigators went through the apartment in the days after, they found a plastic 5-gallon gasoline container under a table in a corner after smelling a "petroleum-based substance," which the report identifies as gasoline, near the stairs. They found more burn and pour patterns on the floor in the living room, hallway and kitchen, and an arson-sniffing canine brought in "indicated three areas where an accelerant may have been used in the north living room and on two separate stairs in the stairway," the report states.
Willie Carter said as far as he knew, it was common for a gas container to be inside the apartment before the fire to get gas for cars.
Gary police and the Indiana State Fire Marshal continued to investigate this week to figure out how the fire started and by whom, and they didn’t have estimates on when their investigations might be completed or additional details to release.
Carter said he has his own idea of how it may have started and why, but he just wants answers as he still grapples with what happened, more than a month later.
"I never thought in a million years I would suffer a tragedy like this," he said.
There were no threats or incidents leading up to the fire that indicated what was to come, Carter said.
They had spent the week before Christmas shopping for the children’s gifts, he said. They wrapped the presents and were waiting to see the children’s faces when they opened them.
Report details initial response, probe into fatal Gary fire that killed 3 children Becky Jacobs
Gary firefighters saw a “glowing red line,” which they later figured out was a metal hand railing, leading up a stairway in a two-story apartment engulfed in fire on Christmas Eve. At the top of the stairs, they would later find one young child and two others together in an upstairs bedroom.
One…
Gary firefighters saw a “glowing red line,” which they later figured out was a metal hand railing, leading up a stairway in a two-story apartment engulfed in fire on Christmas Eve. At the top of the stairs, they would later find one young child and two others together in an upstairs bedroom.
One…
(Becky Jacobs)
"We were just waiting on that time to be happy," he said.
Carter said he tried his best to save them but is sorry the children never had their Christmas or the opportunity to grow up and have a future.
"I just hate that they couldn’t have enjoyed their lives," Carter said.
He remembers his stepchildren, Mitchell and Pickens, as energetic children who were smart for their ages and loved school.
"The passion that they had. The energy that they had," Carter recalled.
He remembers how big and warm Pickens’ hugs were when he saw her, Carter said.
He said Mitchell loved superheroes. A few days before the fire, Mitchell came home from school and showed Carter his "Power Rangers" toy. Carter enjoyed watching Mitchell get into "Power Rangers," like Carter had when he was a child, he said.
Carter is thankful for Mitchell, calling him a "hero" and an "angel" who saved his life.
"I thanked the Lord for the little boy for having that voice to even wake me up. I believe that if I never would’ve heard him, we all would’ve been gone," Carter said.
Yoasha Carter declined to discuss the case herself, deferring to her husband. Lake County court records show the Carters were going through a divorce before the fire, and Willie Carter said he hadn’t had much contact with his wife since then.
Nevertheless, Willie Carter said it’s been a painful recovery in the weeks since the fire, emotionally and physically.
He wasn’t discharged until Jan. 11 from Loyola University Medical Center, where he was treated for burns to much of his body, he said. By the end of January, he was starting to be able to pull on his pant leg and use his arms to lift light objects, he said.
"I’m definitely trying to live through it, try to believe it actually happened," Carter said.
When he initially got out of the hospital, he stayed with a family member in Gary before going to stay with others out of state. He just didn’t feel safe staying in Gary after the fire, he said.
But it’s the emotional toll that’s difficult to deal with, Carter said with tears as he remembered the fire. He said he knows it hasn’t been easy for the parents of the children who died in the fire, and there have been comments on social media that "just make things worse" as they move forward, with people telling him he should have died in the fire, he said. It hurts to hear that, and it makes him second guess what more he could have done.
Despite what people write online, Carter said he knows what he experienced the night of the fire, and looking back, he wishes it could have ended differently.
"I wish I could go back," Carter said.
rejacobs@post-trib.com
Twitter @ruthyjacobs
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