ANDY KENNEY - akenney@newsobserver.com
State Bureau of Investigation agents look on as Selma firefighters work at the scene of a fatal apartment fire Wednesday morning.
SELMA -- A 21-year-old woman and her 14-month-old son were killed early Wednesday morning in a fire that broke out in a second-story apartment unit.
Jennifer Walker, who would have turned 22 next week, was found dead on the scene. Rescue workers tried to resuscitate her son, Isaiah King, but he was pronounced dead at Johnston Medical Center in Smithfield. The 4 a.m. blaze took place at the Redwood Village Apartments, a subsidized complex in Selma.
Selma Police Capt. R.A. Cooper said the fire was very small, contained in the living room, and the victims likely died of smoke inhalation. Discarded smoking materials started the blaze on a couch in the apartment, the Selma Fire Department said in a press release.
Walker's neighbors, smelling smoke, tried to wake her and called the fire department, Selma Fire Chief Phillip McDaniels said.
"They were beating on the doors," McDaniels said.
Firefighters found the child lying motionless on a bed, and Selma EMS crews attempted CPR en route to the hospital. An EMS team declared Walker, the mother, dead at the scene shortly after firefighters found her body in a hallway in the apartment.
Cooper was not sure whether a fire alarm in the apartment sounded a warning, but neighbors in the complex say their units have alarms that are regularly serviced.
"If you ask me, they should have an escape for those people," said neighbor Laura Morse, who lives in the same part of the complex where the fire broke out.
Nearby buildings in the complex were evacuated, Cooper said. The fire caused about $40,000 in structural damage.
Walker was the only name listed on the apartment lease, Cooper said. The Red Cross has offered to help with her and her child's funeral costs, and they are providing temporary housing and help for the three neighboring families that were displaced by smoke and water damage.
