Officials Say Victims’ Mother Was Slain Before Blaze Spread

A woman found dead in her apartment after a fire that killed two of her children had been strangled before the fire spread, officials said Saturday.

The county medical examiner ruled the 37-year-old woman’s death a homicide.

Her 5-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son died in a local hospital after being taken from a room that had filled with smoke after the fire started late Friday.

No one else in the building was injured, officials said.

Patrice Harper, a police spokeswoman, said that a bomb and arson squad was trying to determine how the blaze had started.

Social workers had removed the woman’s four other daughters after finding a lack of working utilities and other unsafe conditions in the home.

The two children who died in the fire had been placed with a relative in late 2003, but were returned to their mother after she made changes required by the department.