WISH
Reprinted with Permission

NEW CASTLE, Ind. - An overnight fire killed a woman in New Castle, despite a dramatic rescue attempt.


The blaze broke out at 114 N. 18th Street just after midnight in a building housing seven apartments.

David Johnson lives in the building next door and recalled his desperate effort to get everyone out of the building.

"I come out of my apartment when I see fire coming out of these two upstairs apartments," Johnson remembers. "That's when I come running down kicking on everyone's door."

Johnson managed to reach one person, his Uncle Frank.

“I went up and kicked his door and got him out," he said.

But Johnson couldn't reach the neighbor upstairs.

"In the alley, there's a door that goes up to her apartment and her door was just as red as (pointing to a nearby red camper shell on a truck). I mean you couldn't even get up to her apartment, that's how bad it was," said Johnson.

Firefighters couldn't get to her either.

"They made a couple of attempts and it just progressed so quickly, it broke through the roof," said Fire Chief Jeff Murray. "With the roof coming in, they were afraid to continue with any interior activity."

But Murray thinks Johnson may have saved lives.

"Very well could have. At the time of evening that it is, everybody in bed. I know there were some working smoke detectors," said Murray.

Murray said because the case is now a death investigation, several agencies are involved including the police department, the state fire marshal's office and an accelerant dog from Kokomo.

The home is a total loss and, while the fire is believed to have started on the bottom floor, a definitive cause could be several days away.

Neighbors tell the Muncie Star newspaper that the woman who had lived in that apartment was named Linda Conn.

Investigators won't release the identity of the dead woman until an autopsy is conducted over the weekend.