Investigators Probe Deadly Missouri Fire
A man who worked at a southwest Missouri group home with his wife was among 10 people killed in a fire that gutted the building, the state patrol said Tuesday.Rain fell on investigators working in the day-old ruins of the home for the mentally ill and elderly, where two dozen others, including the man’s wife, were injured in Monday’s blaze.
State and federal authorities were treating the fire at the Anderson Guest House as a crime but hadn’t ruled out the possibility of an accident.
“We’re not saying it is definitely a crime scene, but we are treating it as if it is and trying to determine if the fire was set by somebody who had a nefarious motive,” Gov. Matt Blunt said.
Authorities also were looking at possible links to a smaller fire at the facility Saturday morning, Assistant Fire Marshal Greg Carrell said. No one was injured in that fire.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol identified eight of the victims: Amy Brown, 37; Nathan Fisher, 52; Patricia Henson, 54; Brian Rudnick, 33; Don Schorzman, 57; Alta Lemons, 74; Isiah Joyce, 25; and Glen Taff, an employee whose age was not released.
The patrol withheld the names of the other two victims pending notification of relatives.
Inspectors from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which licenses the facility, found some deficiencies at the home in March but none related to fire safety, agency spokeswoman Nanci Gonder said.
The home is licensed to allow mentally ill patients to live there and receive treatment elsewhere. It had fire alarms but no sprinklers.
The dead included nine residents and an employee and ranged from their early 20s to elderly. Eighteen people were taken to hospitals and six were treated at the scene.
The group home is operated by Joplin River of Life Ministries Inc. Robert Joseph Dupont, the ministries’ executive director, issued a statement Monday expressing sadness and saying all displaced residents were being cared for with the help of local agencies.
Dupont, 61, was convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud in 2003 for his part in a Medicare kickback scheme, according to federal records. He was sentenced to 21 months behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release.
Earlier this year, a federal judge rejected Dupont’s efforts to persuade the court to vacate that conviction.
Dupont was listed as a ministries’ officer in the group’s 2002 articles of incorporation. As a convicted felon, he is not allowed under state law to hold such a position with a long-term care facility, Gonder said.
Investigators cited two other group homes operated by Joplin River of Life Ministries for fire safety violations in October 2003, according to a health department memo provided to The Associated Press by the nursing home watchdog Missourian Coalition for Quality Care and a report in the Joplin Globe.
One of those facilities has since closed.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, the nation’s deadliest fire in a facility for older adults since 1950 was at the Katie Jane Nursing Home in Warrenton, where 72 people were killed in 1957.
Monday’s blaze was one of the worst fires at a health care facility since 2003, when a patient suffering from dementia and multiple sclerosis, set fire to her bed and burned down a care center in Hartford, Conn., killing 16 residents. Six months later, in September 2003, a fire killed 15 patients in Nashville, Tenn.
Recently, the federal agency that oversees the safety of nursing homes asked for comments about a proposal to require all nursing homes to have comprehensive sprinkler systems. The rule would not address group homes like the one in Anderson because such facilities are not subject to the same federal oversight.