Townhouse Fire Kills Girl, 6; Brother, 8, Admits Setting It, Officials Say

An 8-year-old boy with a history of psychiatric problems admitted causing a fire that swept through his family’s Panorama City townhouse early Friday, killing his 6-year-old sister, authorities said.

The boy, who was not harmed, was playing with matches shortly before 1 a.m. when the three-level townhouse became engulfed in flames, said Steve Ruda of the Los Angeles City Fire Department. A 3-year-old girl, 9- and 10-year-old boys and an adult escaped without injury.

The children had been left by their mother, Windy Brown, in the care of a man she met about two months ago, authorities said.

The man, Patrick Mason, 39, who is unemployed and on disability, said he pays Brown $200 a month to share the family’s townhome and was often left to watch over the children.

It took firefighters 17 minutes to extinguish the blaze in the 8800 block of Willis Avenue, Ruda said.

The boy--who is under the care of a psychiatrist, according to his mother--admitted to arson investigators that he had accidentally started the blaze, Ruda said.

“My baby is dead, and it hurts me to know it’s because my son was playing with matches,” Brown, 26, said. “He’s had so many problems. He’s pulled a knife on us and he’s tried to jump from the balcony.”

The fire broke out about 12:40 a.m., Mason said. He was watching television downstairs when the boy who started the fire came down from his bedroom and told him there were flames upstairs.

“He was crying,” Mason said. “He felt really bad and he was scared.”

Mason got four children out, but by the time he went up to get the girl, Kenee Williams, he said, the smoke and flames were too intense.

“I tried to save them,” he said, crying. “I really tried.”

Brown said she believes that her son, who takes medication for his psychiatric condition, was upset because she had disciplined him Thursday for trying to steal from the ice cream man.

“I sat him down and really got him in trouble,” she said. “You could tell he was upset.”

Brown said she was buying food for the children’s breakfast when the fire broke out.

But Mason said Brown left the house at 10 p.m. Thursday and didn’t say when she would return. He said she often left the children in his care for long periods, sometimes days.

“She goes out a lot,” he said. “I’m not sure where she goes. She has a lot of friends, I guess.”

In response to a call from firefighters, child welfare workers were probing whether neglect led to the girl’s death, said Neil Rincover, spokesman for the county Department of Children and Family Services.

More than a dozen of Brown’s neighbors said the children were often without supervision. And Brown’s aunt, Jarvette Brown, who lives nearby, regularly checked on the youngsters, she said.

Windy Brown denied the neighbors’ and relative’s allegations. “They all lie,” she said. “I love my children.”

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Times staff writer Evelyn Larrubia contributed to this story.