4 Siblings of Girl Killed in Fire Enter County Custody

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services took custody Friday of four children involved in a July 9 Panorama City townhome fire that killed their 6-year-old sister.

DCFS began investigating after firefighters called the agency reporting that neglect may have led to the girl’s death.

“We were concerned with the safety of the kids,” said Neil Rincover, spokesman for the DCFS. “The children need to be in a different environment. Our staff has been working on this case day and night since the fire.”

Rincover said the 8-year-old boy with a history of psychiatric problems, who admitted starting the fire, is receiving treatment in a psychiatric facility.

He said the other children--a 3-year-old girl and 9- and 10-year-old boys, are in the care of a relative, whose name was not disclosed.

The children will remain with that relative until a judge rules on their future at a Juvenile Court hearing in about a month, Rincover said.

“The court will decide who should take care of these children for the foreseeable future,” Rincover said.

He added that DCFS officials did not know where the children’s mother, Windy Brown, was on Friday and could not comment on who had been caring for the children.

The night of the fire, the children had been left by Brown in the care of a man, Patrick Mason, whom she had met at a park two months earlier.

Brown said she was at the grocery store buying food for the children’s breakfast when the fire started around 12:40 a.m., but Mason said she left the house at 10 p.m. and didn’t say when she would return.

More than a dozen of Brown’s neighbors and several relatives said the children were often without adult supervision, which Brown vehemently denied.