GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A Grand Rapids mom faces arson prices after investigators say she set fireplace to her house along with her kids inside, sending considered one of her daughters to the hospital, the place she later died.
Members of the family stated the 12-year-old woman, Shamiya Stewart, died simply after 8 p.m. Monday at Helen DeVos Kids’s Hospital in Grand Rapids.
“Her life is hanging in the balance and her dad has a tough decision to make,” cousin Patricia Robinson advised Information 8 earlier Monday night.
A member of the family holds up a photograph of Shamiya Stewart. (Jan. 27, 2025)
Members of the family stated she suffered burns over 30% of her physique and the hearth chief stated she additionally suffered smoke inhalation.
Her father stated Shamiya was a “fighter.”
“She ain’t deserve this at all. She’s a good child. She’s my special baby. She was in the NICU for four months. It’s hard. It’s hard. It’s hard for me,” dad Lyn Stewart stated, weeping. “Just keep the family in prayer, please. That’s all I can say.”
A GoFundMe has been began for Shamiya’s household.
CHIEF: MOM SPREAD LIGHTER FLUID, STARTED FIRE
The woman’s mom Roconda Singleton, 46, is anticipated to be arraigned inside days on prices of first-degree arson and three counts of second-degree youngster abuse in connection to the Saturday morning home fireplace on Jap Avenue between Corridor and Martin Luther King Jr. streets.
“This is a shockingly cruel, unimaginable crime committed by a mom against her three kids,” Grand Rapids Police Division Chief Eric Winstrom stated at a Monday afternoon information convention.
3 hospitalized after Grand Rapids home fireplace
A Jan. 25, 2025, reserving photograph of Roconda Singleton from the Kent County jail.
“This is a mom that meticulously took all seven of her smoke detectors and put them in a bag and removed them from the house before she poured lighter fluid all over the house and lit it on fire in an attempt to kill her three children,” the chief went on to say.
He stated Singleton poured lighter fluid “all over upstairs, all over downstairs.”
“I think she covered the couch in lighter fluid,” Winstrom stated. “That’s a pretty effective way to start a fire.”
Members of the family referred to as Shamiya’s 10-year-old sister a “hero,” saying she helped get their different sister, age 7, out of the home by way of a window.
“We just thank God for her quick thinking. She’s bruised but she’s here,” Patricia Robinson stated of the 10-year-old.
“It’s a lot for a young lady to handle at such a young age, but her quick thinking saved their lives,” Robinson’s husband Pastor Chris Robinson stated.
The ten-year-old advised Information 8 she tried to get to Shamiya, however there was an excessive amount of smoke and he or she could not breathe.
“Everybody was trying to save my mom and she just wanted to lay down on her bed while her room was lighted up with fire. And she did not want to go but she finally came out,” the 10-year-old stated. “She wouldn’t tell where (Shamiya) was, so I had to keep leading them to my sister.”
“I want to say that she should be locked up for life for killing my sister,” the 10-year-old stated. “I want to know, why did she have to do that to her? She didn’t deserve that.”
FIREFIGHTERS PULLED GIRL FROM BURNING HOME
A passerby noticed the flames and referred to as 911. Police physique digital camera video launched in the course of the information convention exhibits an officer questioning Singleton about whether or not anybody was nonetheless in the home after which directing firefighters to a bed room on the second flooring. With large, brilliant orange and yellow flames leaping from the primary flooring and smoke billowing, firefighters climbed a ladder to a second-story window to rescue the 12-year-old.
“Even when the firefighters were walking in the second floor in the back … the smoke (was) so thick that I’m sure you couldn’t see more than an inch in front of your face,” Winstrom stated.
Within the video, firefighters can then be seen laying Shamiya within the snow and beginning chest compressions.
Shamiya was rushed to the hospital. Her sisters had been handled and launched.
Bodycam video from the Grand Rapids Police Division exhibits a home fireplace on Jap Avenue between Corridor and M.L.Okay. Jr. Streets in Grand Rapids on Jan. 25, 2025. (Courtesy GRPD)
Bodycam video from the Grand Rapids Police Division exhibits a home fireplace on Jap Avenue between Corridor and M.L.Okay. Jr. Streets in Grand Rapids on Jan. 25, 2025. (Courtesy GRPD)
Harm to a home on Jap Avenue SE close to Alexander Road SE after a Jan. 25, 2025, fireplace.
Grand Rapids Hearth Division Chief Brad Brown stated 42 firefighters from 13 items rushed to the home to battle the hearth, which he stated superior “very rapidly.”
“Our members placed themselves directly in harm’s way to save a life,” Brown stated. “The vast majority of rigs in this city of Grand Rapids, at one point or another, made their way through this fire. … We had multiple things going at the same time. We had four separate teams searching, two different crews doing fire attack, ventilation, water supply and medical out in the front yard.”
The bag of smoke detectors, in the meantime, was within the yard, the police chief stated. He stated they are often heard beeping within the bodycam video as officers moved by the bag.
If convicted of arson, Singleton faces as much as life in jail. Every of the kid abuse prices are 10-year felonies.
Singleton has a legal historical past, however the police chief stated it’s not intensive and the house was not a “problem house.” Winstrom stated he “cannot fathom any motive” for a mom trying to hurt her kids. Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker stated “it’s a mental health issue.”
“I think that’s what’s going to come out,” Becker stated. “But a lot of the calls that they were getting were mental health-related for mom. But there’s … no prior child abuse.”
The police chief stated Kids’s Protecting Providers is now concerned. Group members are additionally working to help the youngsters.
“We need prayer because this dad is hurting, as well as these children,” Chris Robinson stated. “Wherever answers can be provided, let the answers come. … No family should have to go through this.”
—Information 8’s Amber Krycka and Meghan Bunchman contributed to this report.
