FREMONT, IN (WTVB) – Indiana State Police and the State Fire Marshal’s Office are investigating an early Saturday morning house fire in Fremont, Indiana which claimed the lives of a mother and her three children.
According to the Steuben County dispatch record, at 5:02 a.m. a 911 call was received reporting a house fire at 400 East Toledo Street. The Fremont Fire Department was dispatched and on scene at approximately 5:09 a.m., where they found a working house fire. Angola, Orland, and Ashley-Hudson Fire Departmens were also dispatched to the scene.
Firefighters located three children and an adult female inside the burning structure. All four victims were transported to Cameron Hospital in Angola.
The victims have been identified by the Steuben County Coroner’s Office as 37-year-old Rebecca White of Fremont, her five-year-old son Emmett Freed and her two daughters- three-year-old Eleanor Freed and 21-month-old Alaura Freed. The three children were pronounced deceased at the hospital.
White was flown from Cameron Hospital by Parkview Samaritan helicopter to the burn center at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, where she eventually succumbed to her injuries and died.
The State Fire Marshal’s Office says the fire appears to have started on the second floor in an area that was not occupied at the time. At this early stage of the investigation, it appears all four occupants were believed to be in a single bedroom.
The Indiana State Police will be coordinating information with the State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Steuben County Coroner’s Office to determine if there was a criminal element to the fire.
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