10-year-old boy charged with setting deadly fire

A mountain of stuffed
animals surrounded a makeshift memorial at
the site.

GREENVILLE, Ohio (AP) — A 10-year-old boy who lived in a home where his mother, sister and three other children died in a fire has confessed setting the blaze and was charged with juvenile delinquency counts of murder and arson, authorities said Friday.

The boy, Timothy Douglas Byers, didn’t intend to kill anyone but was charged with murder because the deaths occurred as a result of the arson, Darke County Prosecutor Richard Howell told the Dayton Daily News.

Byers faces one delinquency count of aggravated arson and five delinquency counts of murder in Darke County juvenile court, police Chief Dennis Butts said in a statement. He said the boy confessed. Authorities did not say how or why the fire was set. Byers will be held at the West Central Juvenile Detention Facility in Troy, Howell told the Daily News.

The fire roared through the two-story wooden-frame duplex Sunday morning. Byers’ mother, Chanan Palmer, 31, and his sister, Kaysha Minnich, 8. died in the fire.

Also killed were Kayla Winans, 6, JeShawn Davis, 5, and Jasmine Davis, 3. They were the children of Christy Winans, 31, who escaped the fire. She did not respond to messages seeking comment Friday.

Also escaping the fire were Palmer’s son and Winans’ boyfriend.

The deaths stirred the emotions of this rural western Ohio community of 24,000.

“People are heartbroken with the tragedy,” Mayor Gregory Fraley said earlier Friday. “And people’s hearts have been troubled again since we announced last night that it was intentionally set.”

Fraley said he couldn’t remember a tragedy of this magnitude in the city, about 30 miles northwest of Dayton.

Jason Forbis, a neighbor of the victims, was one of the first to arrive at the fire. He pulled several victims away from the house and applied wet towels.

“I didn’t sleep for days. I didn’t eat for days,” said Forbis, 32. “I’m having some nightmares and cold sweats. It’s fresh to me.”

Fraley said Red Cross and Hospice are partnering for grieving sessions with neighbors.

A makeshift memorial across the street from the house had swelled from a few stuffed animals on Monday to a small mountain of more than 250 by Friday.

Stuffed bears, bunnies and dogs in a rainbow of colors ringed a silver maple tree. Pinned to the tree were photos of the victims and sheets of paper offering words of comfort, including “God’s crying with us.” Red and white candles bled pools of melted wax to the curb.

At Mercer Savings Bank, a flier in the window with a photo of the victims urges residents to donate money for the funerals. Three yellow deposit cans stand in the bank lobby.