Albany-- Neighbors say nine or ten people, mostly children, were in the home at 613 Cotton Avenue, when fire broke out.
The fire was burning intensely before anyone spotted it. The ten month old was in the bedroom where the fire started, and family members could not save him.
Willie James Price, the dead child's uncle, tried to fight the fire with a garden hose. "The fire was too strong. I couldn't do nothing with it,"he said.
Ten month old Rashawn Adam Jenkins was sitting in a high chair in the front bedroom of the Cotton Avenue home, where the fire started. No one could reach him.
Price said "The last I heard was the baby crying, that was it." The boy's mother, Vontressa Jenkins, and grandmother Victoria Jenkins, had seven or eight children with them about 9:20, when they spotted the flames.
Albany Fire Department Assistant Chief James Carswell said "We don't know whether it was a space heater too close to combustibles, or something in the wiring. We haven't been that specific yet."
When a child dies in Dougherty County, the child death task force, investigators from the Police, Sheriff, D. A., Fire, and Coroner, look into the death. Investigators were puzzled why a space heater was in use on a warm night, and how the fire could grow so intense in such a small house, before it was noticed.
Carswell said "we will do everything to try to find all the answers to all the questions we have." This evening the investigation continues, but so far no signs of any criminal wrong-doing.
They label the fire a tragedy, that cut short the life of a ten month old boy. Rashawn Jenkins is the second person to die in a fire in Dougherty County this year.
posted by dave.miller@walb.com
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2013 Worldnow and WALB, a Raycom Media Station. 
