Five Siblings Die in Two Incidents

Jamesetta Shealeay gave birth to five children over the past seven years. Now she has none.

Her twin 10-week-old girls died in 1995, after Shealeay wrapped them in blankets and turned up the heat, raising their body temperatures to a fatal level. Three boys died after a fire on Jan. 16, in the same house.

Is it the worst luck in the world, or something else?

The deaths of the twins were ruled an accident. Arson specialists are investigating the fire, but at this point it appears one of the boys may have been playing with matches.

What is known for certain is that the five children were born to troubled parents, and that state and Spokane Indian child welfare agencies failed to protect them.

The boys had been removed from Shealeay’s custody and were not even supposed to be at the home the night of the fire. They were shuttled from relative to relative as their parents, who are not married, battled drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence.

The father, Anthony L. Allen, 26, has spent much of the past decade in jail. He was in jail when his twin girls died. He was back behind bars when his three sons died.

By their mother’s own account, the boys should not have been with her the night of Jan. 16.

“Any mistake that’s ever been made, I’ve made it,” Shealeay, 28, told the Spokesman-Review. “If we’d been dealing with the state instead of the tribe, things would have been better.”

The boys were taken from their mother in early January because she violated several restraining orders when she took the youngsters to visit their father in jail.

Because Anthony Allen is a member of the Spokane Tribe, the state Department of Social and Health Services deferred to the tribe’s child welfare agency. The tribe prefers to place children removed from troubled homes with relatives, rather than foster parents.

The tribe placed them with Lenora Cummings, Shealeay’s half-sister. But it was easy for Shealeay to take the boys home with her a week before they died.

“I knew I wasn’t supposed to have them, but what was I going to do? They wanted to go home,” Shealeay said.

As for the girls’ deaths, Shealeay bundled twins Lenora and Aurora Allen into fuzzy pink blankets on the cold night of Dec. 6, 1995, and turned a space heater on, sending the temperature in the bedroom up to nearly 100 degrees.

Shealeay told investigators the babies had been sick. When she tried to wake them a few hours later, they were dead.

“I worried about them so much, and I finally just made them too warm,” Shealeay said at the time.

The pathologist who performed the autopsies found nothing suspicious.

“It wasn’t anything that was intended by anyone,” George Lindholm said at the time. “These were absolutely beautiful, healthy, well-cared-for children.”

Kathy Spears, spokeswoman for the state Department of Social and Health Services, said that the state considers the earlier case closed. “There would be no reason for us to be involved,” she said.

In early January, fire broke out in the living room of the modest house around 10 p.m. Home video taken by neighbors showed Shealeay running around outside the house, screaming for her children.

Eldest son Anthony Jr., 6, also got out. But he went back in to try to save Malcolm, 4, and William, 2. All three boys were killed.

Shealeay said she caught one of her sons playing with matches a few days before the fire. And so far, investigators have said the blaze was probably started by an open flame that ignited a living room chair.

“We are aware at least one of the children in the house had been involved in juvenile fire-setting before,” Spokane Fire Chief Bobby Williams said.

Shealeay last week made a televised plea to other parents to teach their children not to play with matches. And the youngsters’ father said the tragedies have prompted him to seek treatment for his drug and alcohol problems.

“We’ve been through a lot. Our life’s got to get right,” Allen said.