Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
WARWICK, Mass. (AP) — A woman and her four children, ages 7 to 15, were formally identified Monday as the victims of a weekend house fire, and authorities said her husband and another child escaped from the home with non-life-threatening injuries.
A medical examiner said Lucinda Seago, 42, and the children were killed when flames swept through their single-family home in Warwick early Saturday, according to the office of the Northwestern district attorney. Seago's husband, Scott, and a fifth child were treated at a hospital.
"There are no words, really, truly," said Susan James, Lucinda Seago's younger sister, in a telephone interview Sunday with the Boston Globe. "She was a wonderful mother of five, including a younger child who was autistic. She was a devout Catholic and a darn good person."
The cause of the blaze is still being investigated, but authorities said initial indications are that it was caused by a wood stove in the kitchen and was accidental in nature.
Over a dozen area fire departments helped battle the fire, but crews were hampered by bitterly low temperatures and the challenges of drawing water to battle a blaze in the rural town of fewer than 800 residents, which has no fire hydrants.
Dozens of churchgoers gathered at the Trinitarian Congregational Church in Warwick on Sunday for an emotional service, the Globe reported.
"You can't live in a little town like Warwick without being moved by the shock, the grief, of it all," the Rev. Dr. Gordon Ellis said during the service.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
