Flora Fire ////// 538 | Forensic Files

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[Music] [Music] crime four young sisters who all died in a fire at their family [Applause]
home still unclear how the fire started investigators are looking at the first floor electrical
system the girl's mother injured along with two police officers who tried to save the
sister's [Music] lives such an early age such a heavy loss I missed [Music] them she was a single mom working very
hard and like I said her babies were her angels I can't imagine what she's going
through [Music] sadly on November 23rd 2016 the Carroll County Comet ran the following Report with the headline Four
Sisters perish and floor fire the article read in part an early morning fire Monday November 21st 2016 in Flor
claimed the lives of Four Sisters ages 11 9 7 and 5 and sent their mother and two police officers to the hospital the
victim's names have not been released 911 was called at 3:35 a.m. to a 2un apartment building located at 103 East
Columbia Street when emergency Personnel arrived Flames were visible according to
flor Town Marshall Paul Redmond the victim's families resided on the main level which also includes an upstairs
bedroom where the girls slept officers and volunteer firefighters removed the girls who were not breathing from the
residence Redmond said they worked hard to resuscitate them but could not the victim's mother was airlifted to an
Indianapolis hospital for treatment a County Deputy was flown to a Fort Wayne hospital for treatment of smoke
inhalation and burns to his hands and face a flora police officer was transported to a Lafayette hospital for
treatment of smoke inhalation the couple occup cying the upstairs apartment escaped unharmed fire units from Deli
Camden Burlington and Cutler also responded according to Redmond the fire was knocked down quickly also helping at
the scene were the Carroll County Sheriff's Department Indiana State Police and other police units the
Indiana Department of Homeland Security and State Fire Marshal along with local authorities are conducting an
investigation as to the cause of the fire Redmond said the victims were students at Carol Elementary School
Carol's counselors as well as others from nearby School corporations and local Ministry were available at the
school to help students and staff cope with the tragedy the comment will run dozens of
articles about the fire and fatalities for the weeks and months to come we have covered several house fires and arson
stories on True Crime garage and unfortunately there were fatalities in those fires as well but stop stop and
really think about it for a while there are a few things more terrifying than a house fire imagine waking in the night
the house still dark the smell of smoke is strong you jump out of your bed with one thought my children you rush from
the room only to be confronted with a wall of black smoke so thick your eyes water your throat burns and your lungs
sees up the heat searing your skin to the point where you are sure that you on fire screaming is impossible as you are
overtaken by coughing and you stagger out the front door choking and gasping for air and your children are still
inside this is what happened in the middle of the night on November 21st 2016 in Flor
Indiana later we learn that this deadly house fire was no accident this is true crime garage and this is the floor Fire
[Music] case in November of 2016 little girls Keon Kiara Kiana and carel lived with
their mother gayen Rose in a rented apartment inside a duplex in the Tiny Town of Florida FL Indiana the house was
situated on a corner right next to downtown Flora this is a town of just 1 square mile occupied by 2,000 residents
the small town of Flora is located in Carroll County Indiana the house galin and her girls lived in located at 103
East Columbia Street was divided into two separate Apartments the family of five our family that we're discussing
lived in one half and other tenants a mom and her two kids occupied the other half of this duplex gayen and her kids
slept on two different floors of the home the girls slept in bedrooms upstairs and Galen occupied a room on
the main level the four sisters were normal little girls who loved to play outside and were big time into
cheerleading and that is an understatement I cannot emphasize that enough big time into cheerleading they
were on various competitive cheering teams and they ranged in age from 5 to 11 so preschool age up to the sixth
grade neighbors would later tell the media that the kids were always playing outside they were very nice and polite
children they said the mom was friendly and would say hello the girls love to play with other neighborhood kids dogs
and were always smiling and dancing one Flor resident said they were so joyous they were very happy girls I've never
seen them not smiling always on the front porch waving at everybody that went by they didn't know a stranger well
let's get to the details of this tragic event okay Captain so on the weekend of November 18th through the 20th
2016 the girls had a cheer competition on that Saturday afternoon on Sunday Keana who was big into basketball she
had a game so the five members of this family went to the grocery store and went home to eat dinner after this
basketball game and after dinner it would be bedtime for the girls on Sunday night this is the 20th the girls all
went to bed around 1 p.m. upstairs in their room Galen slept alone downstairs so she says that she went to bed around
the same time as well but around 3:30 a.m. gayen wakes up here's what happened per Fox 59 news it says everyone was
asleep the girls were upstairs and Galen was in her bedroom on the main floor until she said intense smoke woke her up
the whole entire house was full of smoke I couldn't really see gayen said I pretty much tried to save my babies by
running up the steps I got halfway I couldn't breathe and I just ran out of the house to try to help now Galen stood
in the front yard in her night gown screaming but other screams could be heard as well coming from inside the
house a neighbor one of many awakened by the sounds of the distraught mother called 911 the first to respond was
Carroll County Sheriff's deputy Drew Yoder he rushed into the house when Galen screamed at him that her children
were still inside he was quickly forced to retreat from the burning structure second to respond was Flora police
officer Josh disinger the two officers attempted to enter the home several more times but they had to pull back each
time on another attempt Dinger had to pull Yoder out of the home because the smoke was so dense the Flames so hot
later Yoder said to the Journal and Courier the third time is when things went bad all I remember is waking up in
the ambulance with disinger standing over me telling me that everything was going to be okay firefighters were able
to be on the scene very quickly by the time they arrive we have smoke and Flames that are billowing from the house
gayen Rose stood on the front lawn screaming hysterically the two law enforcement officers were down by this
point injured by their repeated attempts into the home right so shortly after 3:30 a.m. we have an EMT who lived next
door to the family her name is Angela Francis she was awaken by the screaming she ran out to help and was immediately
you know thrown into this situation where she's helping and assisting anyone that she can including the ambulances
that are now arriving on the scene we also have neighbor chassity Fox her and her husband also went outside of their
home that night and watched horrified as as sadly the First Responders failed to
save the children per Fox 59 gayen Rose recalled the ambulance man told me that my babies was no longer
here and after that moment I don't remember anything Galen was sedated and airlifted
from the scene to a hospital in Indianapolis her condition was listed as critical but stable she was in the
hospital for nearly a week the floor of firefighters were eventually able to put out this fire one
by one EMTs brought out four little bodies on stretchers Deputy Yoder suffered Burns to his hands and face and
smoke inhalation he was airlifted to a burn unit in Fort Wayne where he stayed for several days he wrote a handwritten
note to officer disinger that read quote you saved my life Josh He later says that he has no recollection of writing
this note disinger was treated at the Lafayette hospital he too had smoke inhalation but he was released Monday
night the two men had done everything in their power to try to save all four girls Unfortunately they just failed the
the smoke was too bad the fire was too big and just think I have little fires at my house you know outside you know
little Bond on Fires you're moving around those firewoods and boom you get hit with some smoke and you start
coughing and choking immediately and that's of a little fire and you're surrounded by fresh air can you imagine
how you'd react or how the body would react when you're hit with smoke and when you're gasping for air all your
body is getting is more smoke the residents of the other half of the home remember we have a woman with her two
children that lived there she was able to escape that night without any injury at all luckily her children were not
home with her that night Carroll County coroner JD cre announced that all four girls had died of asphixiation due to
smoke inhalation manner of death was listed as accidental this was obviously devastating to the family but also all
the firefighters that were involved in trying to save these girls lives and it devastated the whole community so they
held the funeral at the local high school this is one of those horrible situations that we hear about Captain
where the First Responders are now traumatized for months and even years to come the funeral itself must be
unbearable we're talking about four children here the Carol Elementary School provided grief counselors for the
students who all knew the girls students created banners and cards and posted them all along the walls of the school
and a candle light vigil was held on Tuesday evening of that week afterward people delivered meals to Galen Rose and
her family and fundraisers and sales from a cookbook raised money for her to help try in some way to rebuild her life
Deputy Yoder who we have already talked about who was on the scene and tried several times to get back in the house
he was obviously devastated by the incident as was everyone he when he learned that the girls had not been
saved he was crushed he says you know I know these girls I drove through Flora all the time for work and I would see
them he says quote those girls were always outside on a nice day dancing around and the greatest thing is is they
would all stop smile and wave as you pass by he had often spoken with gayen who was a cashier at a gas station in town
so he knew her as well this is one of those situations it's a small town not a lot of people and he shows up and he's
responding trying to save people that he knows people that he has seen in his everyday life well First Responders get
to know gas station attendance a lot because they stop in and get coffee at all hours
of the night and in a small town if you're a cashier anywhere you really get to know a lot of people in the community
these four girls were absolutely beautiful girls absolutely beautiful and Captain you know 20 years ago I worked
at a gas station and I've always recommended here if you work at a gas station offer free coffee to all the
officers to First responders get those people in your stores and take care of them on that Monday Captain this was
like 3:30 in the morning on that Monday so now we have all this tragedy that happens in the middle of the night and
we have fire investigators who are going to have to begin the process of sifting
through the debris rubble and Ash to try to determine the point of origin because
we have four fatalities here we have an investigation that has to happen exactly
so we have assistant chief of the Burlington Fire Department Derek Jackson that said it's just a fire that happened
at night people were sleeping and didn't wake up in time right but it was not really that simple as we know the
Indiana State Police they were the official lead investigative Agency on the case the actual on the scene fire
investigation would require experts the fire would be investigated by the Indiana State Fire Marshall's office
which is part of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security and this would be well a rather extensive and ongoing
investigation in the first few days fire investigator Dennis Randall would only say that the fire was categorized as
undetermined pending review of the structure by an electrical engineer most house fires and even
business fires are electrical at the point of origin right and so I'm assuming that that's what they were
thinking they could be looking at here in this particular fire and it's also older building that's correct throughout
the years the electric codes change and part of the house possibly wasn't up to code and so after a few days of
Investigation they were not really sure what caused the fire they were still listing the official ruling is
undetermined even at that time they were able to determine that the it started in
the kitchen possibly behind the refrigerator and there are other reports out there that say that the fire started
at the back of the house on the ground floor I want to be clear about something here it's not been we're going to go
through this along our timeline here and even in these early stages of their investigation the first couple days in
we're getting conflicting reports about the origin of the fire where it started they've not officially released
to this day where that fire started so when you hear us reading off different points of where the fire could have
started right just know that nothing is absolutely official on those statements these are from reports that have come
out since the investigation has been going on well and a lot of people think that it's possibly it was started behind
the oven as well you you hear that on several reports the sad fact is is they're renting this house this is a
mother a single mother of four trying to put her kids in the best situation that
she can they're renting a house without smoke detectors yeah the the official statements that I have or at least the
reported statements that were coming out early on was that no foul play was suspected that a canine Officer on the
scene had found no presence of accelerance and further investigation had found that a smoke detector at the
top of the stairs on the second floor had no batteries in it and it was melted from the heat of the fire and there is a
a portion of this statement here captain that says there were no working smoke detectors in the part of the house where
the family lived right by early December the Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms had officially joined the
fire investigation it's not clear whether their assistance was requested or if they decided to jump in to this
investigation the case went quiet shortly after that as the investigators did their thing and that is the end of
any normaly in this tragic case from here on out it goes kind of Haywire in my opinion a little wonky donkey two
months after the fire on January 28th there was big news so so remember we've been told
already by this point in our timeline that there was no reason to suspect Foul Play right and that there were no
detected accelerance by the canine officers that the girls deaths were still listed as accidental at this point
and so on but now as of that January 28th 2017 a press release from the State Fire
Marshall's office stated that the fire was the result of arson again we have fire investigator Dennis r R he said in
a statement released on that Saturday quote the November 21st 2016 Flora Indiana fire has been ruled incendiary
at this time there are no suspects investigators determined the fire to be incendiary after accelerants were found
in several locations of the structure end quote so as you can imagine Captain this is huge news accelerants are found
in several locations based off of this statement yeah and this is several locations inside the house occupied by
Galen and the girls so the fires no accident or the result of faulty wiring or even
electrical short this we're now being told is a fire that was deliberately set four young sisters who all died on a
fire at their family [Applause] home still unclear how the fire started investigators are looking at the first
floor electrical system the girl's mother injured along with two police officers who tried to save the
sister's [Music] lives such an early age such a heavy loss I missed [Music] them she was a single mom working very
hard and like I said her babies were her angels I can't imagine what she's going
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want to take a quick minute to wish all of you guys and your family a happy turkey day a happy and safe Thanksgiving
to everybody out there tall Kansas in the air right Cheers Cheers now for anyone who's paying attention to our
cases that we cover here in the garage and the dates and locations that we have discussed so far you may realize
something pretty significant Flora that little town AB buts another small town in Indiana that was rocked by a crime in
which two girls were murdered Abby Williams and Libby German were murdered on the moanin High Bridge Trail in Deli
Indiana on February 13th 2017 this was literally just 3 months after the floor of fire so now we have
six young girls who have all died under suspicious circumstances in just a period of 3 months and about a distance
of 8 miles away all in Carroll County Indiana Again these budding counties they share Community they share
community events but they also share family members so you have one County already grieving and now you have
another one grieving as well it's it's very tragic time for that region and then you have the effect that this was
going to take some of the resources away from the floor of fire investigation that being the deli investigation so for
one thing as we know newer cases always get the most attention from law enforcement but some people have
wondered whether this was a race related issue and if the four daughters that were killed in the Floor of fire were
white some have said that the investigators would have continued their investigation with more Vigor yeah I
don't know how much Vigor it had but the investigation definitely continued so the Four Sisters case got no televised
press conferences no national news exposure no public outcries that the culprit would be brought to Justice in
fact Robert IES the Carroll County prosecutor at the time somebody who we've quoted here before when we've
talked about the deli case right says he wasn't even notified that arson was suspected 6 months after the fire he
told Fox 59 Labs test have been done lab results have come back but I haven't received anything like a final police
report not one suspect had been brought to his attention he said and he goes on to say quote the floor of fire has had
as much investigation put on it as many people involved as much serious consideration as probably any other case
I've ever been involved in except for the deli murder well obviously it's going to be investigated by law
enforcement but this investigation is going to be trumped because it's going to be investigated by the firefighters
as well but I think one of the reasons why it didn't get as much coverage initially is because the reports was
this is an accident okay if it's an accident it's a tragic event we're going to talk about it and and now we're going
to have these funerals the community is going to come together and now let's start working to move past this if it
came out the night of the fires or the next day that no we believe this is 100% arson then you're looking at a
murder investigation right away and I think that's one of the reasons it didn't get the coverage that it deserved
yes this is a horrible horrible situation nobody's denying that neither nobody should even be comparing which
situations more tragic they're equally tragic and I think you're spot on here Captain a part of the reason why we have
less information or at least less news coverage and National outcry for justice here is the fact that you just said it
was originally ruled or thought to be either undetermined or accidental and so that takes a little
bit away from that sentiment from everybody to begin with but the other thing too I don't know that it's really
truly fair to kind of compare the investigations or the efforts put forward on these two cases it doesn't
feel to me like we're comparing Apples to Apples it's a little more apples to oranges here because very few we've been
doing this a very long time I have seen very few cases that have received as much attention as the deli murder cases
yeah well look it it'd be like every child that is murdered saying it's not fair that John B Ramsay's case got
covered more than theirs that's a good example and then on top of that in the True Crime podcast Community a lot of
the craters we know are more likely to cover a unsolved murder case than unsolved arson case they're just not
covered as much in the True Crime world yes and I feel like with the deli case really the there's only a handful of
cases that I think have received as much or more publicity than the deli case and
I mean we're talking John Benet the OJ Simpson case there's very few out there now what I do believe here in this case
for the floor Fire case is I would have liked to seen more eyes and earballs on this from the get-go because I do think
that there's somebody out there that might know something but the investigation itself has been a little
weird and that's why I said earlier that that's going to be the last of the normaly in this case and in this
investigation yeah because we what we have here is first off arson is very difficult to determine and investigate
right now the other problematic thing for the investigation itself is Most states and
cities do not have a high clearance rate when it comes to arson to clearing arson
cases meaning most of the time they don't make an arrest or get a conviction in the
arson case like you said it's a tough investigation because smoke destroys evidence fire destroys evidence similar
to a crime happening and the victim being placed into water that water is going to destroy so much evidence and
before we move on too far into the investigation Captain I want to make sure that I point something out too that
really kind of ticked me off as I was going through my research and looking into this horrible Fire case
here at some point when there was no news of a good suspect or finger pointing to people people outside of the
home at some point some members of the public started pointing their finger at Galen Rose the mother of the three girls
and I found that incredibly I think disgusting is the best word I understand that there's
suspicion and that when there has been no answers and you cannot find the culprit of something so horrific as this
that you want to find somebody to blame that you want to point the the finger and say I think that's why I think
that's the person that did it and that's why we don't have the answers I get that
end of it but everything that I can see she does not make a good suspect other than the fact that we know she was in
the home that night I see a woman here that has been destroyed absolutely destroyed you think
that Community was destroyed by this event her life has been it's been hell I'm sure every day for her has been hell
and now we're coming up on 5 years since that horrible night well my issue is that she's a she's a victim in this
tragic event law enforcement know that firefighters and their investigators know that to me you have a duty to
investigate this hard and fast and if you can rule her out initially again you you didn't say it was arson right away
so it gets less coverage with less coverage less people talking about it less likely you're going to have
somebody talking and and have somebody confessing to a friend or something of that nature but also when you know that
she was home rule her in or out very quickly and that's law enforce you know 3 days into their investigation if they
know that she is not a suspect you come out and you stand hard that she is not a
suspect and if you do that then you stop the rumor meals and you stop having people online spec ulate and throw blame
on this lady that is already suffering so I said that the investigation itself was a little weird and I think everybody
will agree with me because what we have here is remember the press release that we just went through where they are now
changing the undetermined status to arson and so essentially if it is arson these four girls were murdered now the
problem with that statement with that press release was we said Indiana State police is the lead on this case they
were unaware that that press release was going to be issued this was not agreed upon by all
of the investigating agencies that hey we're ready to announce the public that we've made a determination of arson here
in this case and then in June of 2017 we have arson investigator Dennis Randall who abruptly resigned from his
position he was the one that released that press release saying saying that the fire was deemed arson after
accelerants were found in several locations in the house now he is on record saying time and time again that
this disagreement between the agencies had nothing to do with him resigning you know some people work at a job for a
very long time or have a career we all retire at some point but one thing that we should note here is some of this
disagreement came about because there was a senior fire investigator from Michigan working for an insurance
company on the Fire case he did not agree with Randall's assessment of the accelerance or how the investigation was
being conducted so in February of that year he wrote a critical email to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security
director and the Indiana State Fire Marshall stating the following the January 28th 2017 press release by the
State Fire Marshal about the conclusions of their investigation are not not correct and completely based on
speculation and not evidence also the press released statement about accelerance being discovered in several
locations is absolutely not based on any evidence discovered at the scene during
the investigation and the investigator Dennis Randall was not performing a proper origin and cause investigation
based on the current procedures of the NFPA 921 2016 Edition this report filed and press release
given by Dennis Randall is truly unfortunate and potentially a grave Injustice for the four little girls that
perished in the fire well Colonel what's your opinions on this I think what we have here Captain is a situation where
we might have too many cooks in the kitchen we have about seven agencies involved in this investigation and it
seems to me like communication wasn't great between these different agencies and I think at points in the
investigation some of their findings seem to be contradicting themselves along the way or other agencies findings
right so I think everything was set up with good intentions of working this thing together in the beginning but
again you have about seven agencies that are involved in this investigation I kind of feel like it was
going to go wrong at some point given the number of of people involved we have seen in many arson investigation where
one expert states that this is 100% definitive that it's arson and then years later they come back and say no
this was clearly accidental this was faulty wiring it becomes very convoluted and and very hard to determine because
we're not experts ourselves in this field no and we've seen that expert opinion change throughout the years
this is a science that they're still working on that they're still working to perfect like everything else and so
where we have cases that we've looked at that are 20 30 years old we look at them
now in hindsight and go I don't know if they got it right based off of the way that we see the science today right and
we could break down each point of this investigation but it would take us hours upon hours there's a lot of minutia but
maybe Colonel you can just break down the major points of this well sadly captain in its simplest form what we are
being told by the experts the ones leading this investigation members of that seven agency team is at first it
wasn't Foul Play undetermined next it was Foul Play accelerants were found in multiple locations inside the home then
a hold up it might not be Foul Play We are still investigating to going back to eventually it was in fact Foul Play It
Was arson but accelerant were only found in one spot in one location and we're not being told exactly what that
location was yeah and when you have the community crying out for hey if this is arson where are the suspects tell us who
these guys are is there somebody that we should be afraid of in our community but
this investigation can't get on the same same track on if it was an accident or arson to begin with well in 2017 in in
December they did a peer review which I always like when these agencies do a peer review so the Indiana State Police
requested that the Indianapolis Fire Department send in experts to investigate the evidence that was
collected at the floor of fire and we have on record Sergeant Kim Riley anyone familiar with the deli case will know
Kim Riley he says quote it's a good practice to have fresh eyes review and investigation and since this case is
believed to be arson the Indianapolis Fire Department was asked to conduct the peer review by the end of January of
2018 the report from the Indianapolis investigators was in they confirmed that the fire was intentionally set however
accelerants were found in only one location in the home not several in the wake of this report the Indiana State
Police announced that the criminal investigation would continue so things started to look promising when we have
Doug Carter again people familiar with the deli case know Doug Carter he's the Indiana State Police spokesman he spoke
with local news stations at this time and he said over time people were starting to talk to us about that place
about that home about that area and around the home what might have been some of the activities in and around
that residence in the days weeks and months leading up to the fire he said police were not yet in a place where
they could make an arrest but quote I believe that we will end quote since that finding by seasoned arson
investigators over 3 years have passed with no arrest no publicly named suspects and really no new
information so here we sit 5 years after the fire and all we figured out by this
point is that it was intentionally set it is an arson fire there was four fatalities and accelerants were found in
one location regarding this fire well we're not getting a lot of information from investigators so maybe we can get
some information from the lawsuits in this case yes captain in May of 2018 Galen Rose's attorney filed a
federal lawsuit claiming that her landlords this is birch tree Holdings were negligent because there were no
working smoke detectors in the part of the house occupied by her and her children they also made a product
liability claim against Sears in Whirlpool the documents filed claimed that an oven and range manufactured by
whirlpool and sold by Sears was the cause of the fire because it was defective fire invest instigators had
removed the range for testing this part of the lawsuit however was dropped in 2020 this after extensive testing
revealed that the stove was not defective gayen also alleges in her complaint that the house also had a back
door that had no functioning lock and some outlets in the kitchen that did not work repairs to the outlets took place
just a couple of weeks before the fire obviously arson mitigates the fault on the part of the landlord but the reality
is the non-working smoke detectors present a huge huge problem for the landlords yeah I feel like they're still
that's still neglect and again you have a situation you have a single mother raising four children she's in a
situation where again trying to provide the best home environment for her kids this might might just be what she can
afford and then sometimes you don't feel like you have a leg to stand on to go well the house doesn't have this and the
house doesn't have that and you need to make these changes because you're afraid
well if they evict you for whatever reason that you might not be able to find a better situation yeah and we have
the mother and family who have stated over and over again that they kind of feel like this case isn't being worked
as hard as it possibly could be that maybe it's been shoved under the rug since so much time has gone by we do
have the Indiana State Police that have pushed back on that idea a little bit they have outwardly said you know we
don't have any suspects in this case or we've not named a suspect in this case they've said we have Persons of Interest
we have people that we would like to talk to people that we'd like to track down and speak with that we've not been
able to do yet so uh a little push back coming from Indiana State Police and in fact we have some words from Doug Carter
the spokesman that addresses some of that he said too that he was frustrated by the stagnated investigation but he
also said that the family has failed to provide critical information to move forward the investigation saying quote
I'm hurt that they think we haven't done anything Indiana State Police investigators have taken trips to
Illinois Kentucky Ohio and California in the hunt for Clues Carter hinted that the investigation had stalled because of
a lack of cooperation he said that while Galen spoke with investigators after the
fire she has avoided conversations with investigators about who had access to her home Carter said quote it's very
important that we understand who's been at the house who had been at the house what those Dynamics were and people who
did visit the home and right now we don't know what those answers are we have to get access to the entire family
period end quote well again all First Responders to this whether it's an accident or it was on purpose the end
result is four dead children that shouldn't be dead and those First Responders are going to have to live
with that for the rest of their lives and to think that doesn't affect them or that these the law enforcement doesn't
want to solve this case is just I I can't believe that that is the case no I'm with you Captain I don't think that
that is the situation here I think that this arson investigation is a difficult one I'm not going to sit here though and
pretend that I don't think that they have made some stumbles the investigators themselves along the way
and there's been a little bit of controversy in regard ards to the original fire investigator and the
investigation as it were that Dennis Randall that we've talked about his wife uh was stealing money at one point we're
talking thousands and thousands of dollars from attorneys right and she was eventually sent to do some jail time
some prison time for that theft so there was already kind of a buding of heads between the Indiana State Police Carol
County and the fire department because while some of this investigation's going on
they're also deposing Dennis Randall to talk to him about his wife's Mis dealings and to see if that he is in
anyhow involved or knowledgeable about what she was up to now in the end to be perfectly clear they ruled that he had
no knowledge of his wife stealing money so while she was out doing these wrong Deeds he doesn't seem to have any
awareness of it right at least off of the based off of their findings but it's not a good look from The Outsider
looking in that's going look it's been 5 years what happened here well you can't
deny that he was distracted correct because of this investigation and his you know let's just say it how it is his
dirt bag wife and I don't want to call the deli double homicide case of distraction but it certainly doesn't
help keep your focus on this horrible situation which has been deemed a crime it's been deemed an arson right now as
far as suspects go I think we can touch on that a little bit here because that's
one thing that's missing from a lot of the news reports I think it's fine right it's been 5 years Indiana State Police
I've had your guys's back for a long time MH when we've talked about Deli and many other cases but sadly in Indiana
state is just like any other state there there are many cases that are unsolved but I cannot I'm not going to shy away
from my frustration that I'm starting to have with Indiana State Police and their
poor record so far of clearing these very important cases well let's just say how it is we have six victims and then
thousands of victims that are connected they become victims because they're connected to the murdered victims yes
and those murdered children there's six murdered children that you have no goddamn answers for come on they're
they're batting a zero right now and I feel like I'm still going to have their backs for a while I'm going to give you
another opportunity here Indiana State Police but the sad truth of it is in regard to these two cases it's not been
a good look and if you were on my baseball team we probably would have cut you a long time ago well if they don't
get their [ __ ] together I'm cutting their funding well I'll tell you that I'm not going to send any more beer fund
money their way since very few people were talking about suspects let's try to talk
about some suspects here and again this is going to be speculation on our part as we are not on the inside of this
investigation and they've not allowed really anybody on the inside of this investigation so a man named Mike Veron
is one of the people who has been on the inside of this investigation and been inside the house since the fire he runs
his own fire investigation company he was hired by the mother of the four girls and her attorney he has not worked
with them for months by this point but he has said on the record that he still thinks about the house and the case
often he said that he spent more than 15 years as a certified fire investigator with the ATF before starting his own
company so this dude's legit right he knows what he's doing he's been to more than 1,000 fire scenes and investigated
this one just weeks after it happened there are still things that he does not want to share even while we're at the
fiveyear marker here here's an exchange from an interview with him and a news team the reporter here is Stephanie
Zeppelin basically Captain he's saying no relation to lead he is saying that where he thought the fire started is
where it started okay so his initial suspicions whatever his initial suspicions were right when he got there
and conducted his investigation his suspicions were confirmed Zeppelin goes on to push him and say and that is where
and virgin says I can't really say right now because if we get to a point in the
investigation that they make an arrest the only people that should know where the fire started is the person who said
it and the investigators right he says that he believes that the fire was an arson
but that the goal was not to kill the children he is also not sure whether everything possible is being done to
solve the case if it's not to kill the children then what it was it for why was the fire started he do he's he's being
vague on purpose because he thinks that the answers to these questions would lead you to the person or or may confirm
once you have the correct suspect across from you at the interview table right well because the deli case
has been covered considerably more than this case there are people out there that have tried to connect the deli
murders to the floor of fire I think it's fair to do so we're talking about time and
proximity to the two cases are relatively close mhm and the victimology is very similar we're talking about
young girlss here in all the situations but to me Captain I look at this and I go in the deli case those girls were
absolutely targeted now how premeditated that was is Up For Debate right but here
at the floor Fire case you could almost say that the house was targeted and I say that because I did
quite a bit of research on serial Arsen and a lot of times they will start setting fires to structures that are not
occupied right and then they will graduate for a lack of better word to structures that may have occupants
inside of them some of them get so bad and so deranged at some point that they are purposely seeking out a structure
with occupants to set fire to one of the things I start questioning too is like like you said maybe the house is the the
Target and not the individuals in it because we have it's a it's a duplex mhm a lot of these older houses they were at
one point a single family home and then converted into like a duplex or to Shared living so again it could just be
as simply as well there's no lock on the back door so this you know droopy dooky
dung bucket found an entrance Point into the uh residency if the fire was set inside and that's the interesting thing
there to me because if you have a ruling of arson right typically in these situations and again it doesn't have to
be a Serial arsonist but that's the statistics that are available for us to review so that's the route that I went
here and what you have with a Serial arsonist typically they are only setting fires to
structures from the inside when they are doing that to structures that they know
to be unoccupied right they're not going into a home or into a business and setting the fire from inside now the
ones that quote graduate to setting fires to structures that are occupied typically they're setting those fires to
those structures on the outside and often if it's a home it would be to the porch area either the
front porch or back porch maybe a garage so something that's attached to the home
but not necessarily inside of the home well again like you said you have to look at the victim's surroundings the
the the people that they're involved with in their lives but it's again a shared residency so not just one side's
relatives and their connections but the other side's relatives and connections as well and one thing that is certainly
a possibility here that could leave the door open for not only the house was itself was
targeted but the occupants were somewhat targeted whether they were known by name
or or what have you is look there is a potential that this could be a hate related crime that
this is some type of hate crime yes we have a small population of people but we only have about 3% of them being
African-American in Florida right and this is no I want to be clear here this is no direct disrespect to the people of
Flora because you can have an outsider come in and commit a hate crime in your Tiny Town and then leave right but it's
something that we should examine you could Target that house by saying well I know that African-American people live
there and so that is something that has been speculated on and unfortunately until we have somebody standing in front
of a judge we won't know what the motivating Factor was here for the person that set the fire I want to use
the words of the investigators from what little words that they've released to us
that I think might provide some insight to who may have carried out this crime again everything that I'm seeing captain
and I think you might agree with me points to the words that they're saying make it sound like the fire started
inside the home that they believe that it was started inside the home yeah I agree and I think what backs that up is
they're looking at the the range and the stove mhm they're also talking about we
we heard the rumors or early statements that the fire may have started in the kitchen we hear the mother complaining
about Outlets not working in the kitchen area and I'm with you I feel like a Serial arsonist does not feel likely
here but I did spend a decent amount of time looking into that because for some bizarre reason Flora has a terrible
record with house fires and and has a what I have to believe is a higher than normal fatality rate due to house fires
at least in the months in the Years around this Flora case so I went looking into those because sadly once one thing
that is not terribly uncommon when you have a Serial arsonist is that it is in fact a first responder in fact I'll give
you a quote here 94% of seral arsonists are male very few are caught 16% approximately are caught but set maybe
30 or more fires before being caught First Responders set fires premeditated with intent to return to the fire in a
professional capacity that's beyond strange to me it's not likely but it's not terribly uncommon mhm and like you
said not a high success rate in this town I mean you're having a lot of house fires again some of that is going to be
due to just older buildings and not buildings that are kept up I mean when I lived in Richmond Indiana the thing that
I was really shocked by you know where I come from in Columbus when you're renting you're normally renting
apartment or apartment unit when I lived in Richmond if you're renting you're probably more likely to be renting a
house a single family house or a single family house that they turned into shared living and again not a great
success rate anywhere in this country at solving these AR fires but to give you some kind of
background here on what we may be looking for as far as a speculation into a physical description profile of of a
likely offender if it was somebody that was setting an arson fire that didn't have any ties to the family that wasn't
inside the home or was not invited into the home then what we're probably looking at here captain and these are
just National statistics 44% of the arsons that are cleared in this country are committed by white
males under I'm sorry 44% of the arsons that are cleared in this country are committed by individuals that are under
18 years of age and 64% are under the age of 25 males make up as we said earlier that
high percentage number of off ERS and 75% of those arrested are white 23% are black so if you're going to put
a number if you're going to play a numbers game here on the physical description of a likely offender again
if this is an arson not tied directly to the mother or anyone in the family we're
probably looking for a rather young guy or somebody that was 25 or even let's even go 29 and under at the time of this
fire and given the makeup of the general area and the statistics that we see nationally it's highly likely that it
might be a white male that committed this crime where the thing gets tricky is again back to those words makes it
sound like they believe that the point of origin to be somewhere inside the structure which then takes away from the
probability of it being a Serial arsonist mhm that makes you go back to what doug
Carter has said that they don't believe that they've been given full access to the family or full access to the
Dynamics and what was going on in and around that home leading up to the fire meaning let's say it didn't have a
faulty lock we would want to know things right like who had a key who had access
to the home who frequented the home what would they do while they were there these are all things that the Indiana
State Police would like to know especially if they believe that the fire started inside and if they believe that
it was through the use of accelerants they've probably identified the accelerant now you said something off
mic that is very important to remember people keep accelerance around their homes MH
they're part of our everyday life this is one of those cases right where we have very little information and
unfortunately it doesn't sound like they feel like they can come off of any of that information because later a
conviction might Teeter on the idea of who knows what but also the public is really kind of handcuffed here where we
can't offer much help because we don't know one who they're suspicious of what kind of accelerant we should be
looking out for who was coming and going from that area and if they're even right
if the investigators are even correct that it might be somebody that is tied to the family well again I want to go
back to the possible connection with the deli I just sent you a picture through text message it was one of the it was
just a news article talking about the floor of fires it was talking about local businesses donating stuff to the
family and you see a worker that looks like he is coming down the steps and he was probably in charge of boarding up
the windows at the time and this picture kind of sparked a lot of online detectives armchair detectives
going like well look at this guy he kind of looks like Bridge guy and kind of looks like he's wearing the same jacket
as Bridge guy kind of has that dumpy pouch look in the front of the jacket like he almost has items in his
front pockets or something of the jacket and and look I don't I don't know how much weight there is to this but I I
really think it's just simply it was a picture in an image this guy caught this person's eye or caught these sther eyes
and then used this as a possible connection between Deli and florif fires it feels to me like anybody with
eyeballs somebody somebody that can see has made these comments I feel like Bridge guy a lot of people look like him
obviously that's one problem that Indiana State Police have had in that investigation so many side by side so
many people giving tips that are simply this guy looks somewhat like him I don't
even think that we have a great picture of Deli of the bridge guy to begin with correct uh so I think that that's caused
a lot of confusion and a lot of problems I see two very different cases here um me too based off but I just want I just
wanted to point out that like yeah when you see this picture and some somebody goes oh well that's happened right by
Deli and doesn't that guy look a little bit like Bridge guy mhm somebody could go oh well I could see somebody going
down a rabbit hole and trying to figure out who this individual was and how are they connected uh not just to the floor
fires but how are they're connected to Deli but I think it's a it's just a rabbit hole well speaking of rabbit
holes one that I found myself in in regards to the serial arsonist or first responder arsonist angle to it this is a
very weird portion of the story and I want to make sure that I cut everyone off at the pass here rather than them
contacting me and saying did you look at this Josh Dinger the officer that was one of the good officers that was trying
to help trying to get victims out of this house who was sent to the hospital himself oddly enough this is not the
first time that he's responded to a house fire that has ended in F ality right from the information I could find
Captain this is the third situation in about six seven years where he's responding to a fire uh and running
inside so I want to make sure that we are clear here that we're not throwing him under the bus because this would be
two very different people that we're talking about one this guy's running into burning buildings trying to save
people that that's a much different guy than our suspicions of a first responder
serial arsonist right I want to be very clear about that I also want to make sure that we point out here while the
Flora of fire that we're discussing today has been deemed an arson the other two fires that I could find that he was
one of the First Responders to in fact I believe he was the first responder to the other fires they were deemed yeah
one was electrical one was an electrical fire and the other uh they know the cause of so we're not talking about a
situation here where he's report repeatedly showing up to arson fires yeah I could see somebody having a
suspicion that oh you start this fire and then you show up and then you save the individuals and then you become a
local hero because of it but again anybody that would do anything like that is deranged in my opinion one thing I do
want to point out and give kudos to a web sleuther for you know I don't want to I don't want to get too heated at the
whole web Luther Community here I I like the web Luther Community yes maybe they
come up with some far-fetched ideas sometimes but the more that people are looking into these cases the more that
people are talking about them the more pressure we have on law enforcement to actually solve these cases I personally
I find that the internet has a lot of far-fetched ideas in these cases as far as the actual web sthers go right I feel
like they're a lot more spot-on or more realistic and logical in their pursuit of Justice in these cases so I want to
make sure that we point out here something very different from somebody just going oh this guy looks like that
guy um well I do want to point out that true crime garage it's been it's a proven fact that true crime garage
listeners are one the best web Luthers more knowledgeable on on crime in general and the best looking and best
smelling listeners of all True Crime podcast and that's a fact that is a fact that's backed up by science science and
Edison research this is something that's gone unreported or I don't know if that's the correct word here not
reported however you want to put it but one thing that I think that's interesting here is that 3 weeks before
the fire a man named John taden filed for divorce from Galen Rose and again there are literally no reports in any of
the media about this or her even having a husband at all right the only reason we know about this is because a Savvy
web sluther user found the marriage disolution petition so I'm not saying that there's any that this is any way
connected to one another but it is fact it is something that did happen so we know that John filed for divorce on
October 31st of 2016 and the court website listing the parties to the petition as John's
address was listed in Texas so we don't know where he was in relation to Florida
Indiana I mean he very likely could have been at his home in Texas and had been there for weeks and months and months
but that is something that we did uncover when looking into this case well again this case is very confusing you
want to know why law enforcement is saying that she's the mother of these four children wh why she's not being as
Cooperative as they think they that she should be it also could be a situation hey she's going possibly through this
divorce is she afraid to come forward and and to tell law enforcement to look into different individuals we don't know
that could she not trust the investigation itself is where I think that we might stand here and I think
that would make the most sense because look you're not coming out right away saying whether it's arson or an accident
she was very Cooperative in the early parts of this investigation well and maybe her lawyer is saying look because
the law enforcement has flipped flop back and forth maybe they're going to flip back eventually and say oh you know
what more findings we don't don't think this is arson well part of it too and will that
affect a later lawsuit a civil lawsuit down the line part of it too though Galen lives in California now which last
time I looked at a map is nowhere near Indiana and so where the investigation right beside it may have stalled and
where we have Indiana State Police on record saying we don't feel like the family's being overly Cooperative with
us at this point in our investigation I I would like to know why are are we to believe that who is at
fault because of that is it simply that she doesn't live in Indiana anymore and we've not made a great deal of effort to
speak with her or is it simply the fact that she was a mother of four children that died in a
fire and some people don't recover from that well that's why she moved to California she said you know early on on
the the the community and she has thanked the community time and time again her and her family have thanked
the community for their handling of this tragic situation and the way that they treated her and her family afterwards
and Tred to lift them up in any way that they possibly could but you know she said I couldn't live there anymore I I
lived there with my four children I drove by that house it's near downtown Florida she's like I would pass that
house and my my life would be ruined over and over again yeah I'm waking up to the same nightmare every day well and
think about like her job like you said if she's a gas station attendant the amount of locals she's seeing every day
you know if I went into that gas station I I'd want to give her hug out I'd wanted to tell her hey I'm sorry for
your loss hearing that hundreds and hundreds of times a day as as heart felt as it might be it just it's like a
dagger every time and sadly what I'm worried about here Captain as more time passes we know how all these cases go be
it arson or otherwise it just becomes less likely that we will get Justice for these four girls and that we will get
some answers this is such a tragic case take the time to go to our Instagram or Twitter or Facebook will be
posting pictures of these four beautiful girls and other photos that are related
to this case you can find those again True Crime garage wherever Twitter Facebook Instagram Indiana State Police
are still investigating this sad and tragic case they are still looking for the person or persons responsible they
would like information leading to the arrest of those persons or the person responsible for this fire remember four
young girls were killed in their Flor Indiana home on November 21st 2016 this was determined to be an arson
fire there is a reward for information if you have any information please please reach out to the Indiana State
Police you can call them at 1 1800 382 [Music] 4628 [Music] thank you so much for listening thank
you for letting us whisper in your ear if you haven't signed up for our mailing list go to True Crim garage.com sign up
on our mailing list we don't like to send you a bunch of junk email we like to send you some promo codes so you can
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recommended reading for the great listeners this week today we are recommending that you go cheer yourself
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[Music] litter you can start your day off right when you find a professional on Angie to get
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Flora Fire ////// 538

Part 1 of 1

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The headlines were horrific. One read - “4 sisters perish in Flora fire.” On Monday, November 21, 2016 the tiny town of Flora, Indiana woke up to a terrible tragedy. At 3:30 AM a family of five woke up in a nightmare. Unfortunately only one member of the family made it out of the house that morning. Later it was determined that the fire was intentionally set and the reason that four beautiful little girls lost their lives was arson. Now it’s been five years and here in the Garage we are getting very frustrated with the handling of this case. The investigation involves multiple agencies, overseen by the Indiana State Police. An agency that we have always had a lot of faith in. But we have been told by the ISP that this investigation is a “full court press” to find justice for this family and the community. After five years that is simply hard to believe.

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Brief Summary

Four sisters died in a 2016 house fire in Indiana, initially ruled accidental but later deemed arson, with ongoing investigations and no suspects identified.

Key points

Tragic Fire Claims Four Sisters. A devastating fire in Flora, Indiana, claims the lives of four young sisters.
Investigation Reveals Arson. Initial reports of accidental death shift as investigators find evidence of arson.
Tragic Loss of Four Sisters. Four young sisters died in a fire, leaving a community in mourning.
Community's Grief. The community is grappling with the loss of multiple young girls in tragic events.
Investigation Complications. The investigation into the fire faced challenges and conflicting reports.
Arson Confirmed After Years. After years of uncertainty, investigators confirmed the fire was intentionally set.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Imagine waking in the night, the smell of smoke is strong.

Describing the terrifying experience of a house fire.

7:04WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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