Charges Considered in Children’s Death

Authorities were investigating Friday whether to seek charges of child abuse against two San Diego mothers whose children died or were injured in a fire after they left them unattended to go grocery shopping, authorities said.

Minnie Ford, 24, and her sister, Brenda Ford, 26, were not arrested after the Thursday fire, which claimed the lives of Minnie Ford’s 4-year-old daughter, Marcella Ausbie, and her 2-year-old son, Lamar Calimee.

Brenda Ford’s son, Daniel Cowan, also trapped in the burning second-floor townhouse bedroom in San Ysidro, was updated from fair to good condition at UC San Diego Medical Center, a hospital spokesman said.

The 18-month-old was pulled from a closet by firefighters and taken to the hospital, where he was recovering from smoke inhalation, said Detective Bill Montejano of the San Diego Police Department Child Abuse Unit.

Brenda Ford, 26, also lived at the residence in the 400 block of Sycamore Avenue, Montejano said. The women walked to the grocery store about 4 p.m. Thursday, leaving the children unsupervised.

The fire started when the children played with matches and ignited a mattress, said Fire Department Capt. Al Macdonald. Damages were light, $4,000 to the structure and $1,500 to the contents, indicating that the fire did not burn long.

The women returned within an hour to find thick black smoke pouring out of the second-story windows of the beige stucco townhouse, Montejano said.

“Both women tried to rescue the children,” Montejano said. “But they were driven back by smoke.”

Witnesses at the scene said the women made it up the stairs to the bedroom door, but were unable to open it. Neighbors heard the unit’s smoke alarms ringing and also tried in vain to reach the children. They said the children could be heard crying.

Firefighters arrived and extinguished the fire within 10 minutes, Macdonald said. The two children were found dead.

Detectives on Friday were interviewing relatives and neighbors and checking with county Child Protective Services officials to see if there were any past instances of neglect or abuse, Montejano said.

Montejano declined to discuss his interviews with Minnie and Brenda Ford. He said Minnie Ford is staying with relatives in San Diego and is “obviously very distraught.”

Minnie Ford is nine-months pregnant, Montejano said. Brenda Ford had come to live with her to help care for the children.

According to Sgt. Scott Naliboff, head of the child abuse unit, detectives “will look at every single aspect in this case and take it to the district attorney’s office.”

The four-unit townhouse complex, situated less than a mile north of the U.S.-Mexico border, is owned by the city’s Housing Commission, said commission spokeswoman Mary Joe Riley. The city rents units in Sycamores West to low-income families.

Minnie Ford paid for the unit with money she received from Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Riley said. The unit had two fire alarms, both of which went off.

Statistics on fires caused by children playing with matches are not kept, but the department plans to begin doing so, Macdonald said. Two other 4-year-olds have been killed since January, 1990, in fires they started with lighters or matches.

Macdonald emphasized that all matches and lighters should be kept in a safe place away from children.

“If they can get their hands on them,” Macdonald said, “they are going to experiment with them. We see it all the time.”

Cases in which parents are charged after losing children in house fires are extremely rare, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine Stephenson, chief of the district attorney’s child abuse division.

If the case is brought before the district attorney, many factors will be taken into account, including whether there is any past history of neglect, before charges are pressed, Stephenson said. The charges may range from felony child endangerment, which carries a sentence of two to six years in prison, to manslaughter and murder.

“We don’t want to compound the tragedy by making hasty decisions,” Stephenson said.