
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990                   TAG: 9003231786
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Short

MOTHER SENTENCED TO 8 YEARS FOR DEATHS

A mother was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and child neglect for the deaths of two of her children in a motel fire last March.

Circuit Judge Alfred W. Whitehurst sentenced Madona Jean Kellerhouse to 28 years in prison, but suspended 20 of those years.

The March 1 fire at the Twin Sails Motel killed 6-year-old Renee Shih and 5-year-old Nicholas Shih. A third child, Jeanette Shih, now 5, survived the fire and is living with relatives in Wisconsin. The children were Kellerhouse's by a previous marriage.

Fire officials said the blaze apparently was started by the children playing with matches.

Kellerhouse, 30, left the children alone in the locked motel room while she visited her husband, Timothy, in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

- Associated Press

by CNB