THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 13, 1994 TAG: 9412130303
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
A girl celebrating her 17th birthday discovered the bodies of her mother, two half-siblings and stepfather Monday after they had been poisoned by carbon monoxide gas that filled their house when a chimney became blocked with soot and bricks.
The four victims were found on the second floor of the house at 208 West 30th St. shortly after 4 p.m., investigators said.
Mashauna Dempsey, the teenage girl who found the bodies, was returning home on her birthday after spending the weekend at a home nearby. Dempsey became alarmed by an odor of gas. With the help of a friend, she broke down the locked front door.
Three of the victims were found in bedrooms. The fourth, Dempsey's 5-year-old half-brother, was found on the floor in a second-floor hallway.
Kelvin McCarthur, the 20-year-old who helped Mashauna Dempsey kick in the front door, said all four victims appeared to be dressed for bed.
Larry Hill, spokesman for the Norfolk Police Department, said the four may have died as long ago as Saturday, the last time anyone reported seeing the family alive. Investigators said that when they arrived, they measured five times the survivable level of carbon monoxide gas inside the house.
Hill identified the victims as: 38-year-old Julia Dempsey; her fiance, William E. Staton, a disabled former employee of the city of Norfolk, who was in his 40s; the couple's 5-year-old son, William E. Dempsey; and Julia Dempsey's 15-year-old daughter, Lakisha Dempsey.
Shivering neighbors crowded around the taped-off accident scene late Monday afternoon as firefighters and paramedics used enormous plastic hoses to cleanse the air inside the two-story frame house. After waiting for two hours, relatives and friends of the four victims wailed and moaned as the bodies were brought out of the house.
Hill said fire investigators were able to immediately rule the deaths as accidental, the direct result of a blockage in the gas furnace's chimney.
``The chimney attached to the furnace had bricks (that fell) into the chimney tube, blocking the exhaust,'' Hill said. ``. . . Gases from the gas furnace were unable to escape up the chimney, and, therefore, carbon monoxide escaped into the home.''
The chimney also was blocked with soot, Hill said. Others who went into the house said soot had stained the walls of the room near the furnace, indicating that the carbon monoxide backup had been an ongoing problem.
Determining when the victims died won't be possible until autopsies are conducted, Hill said.
Neighbors, however, said they had not seen Julia Dempsey or her family for at least two days.
``I didn't see her, but I had not given it a thought,'' said next-door neighbor Joseph James.
He said Julia Dempsey had lived there for about two years.
Mashauna Dempsey, a student at Madison Career Center on West 37th Street, said she had also returned to her mother's home on Sunday and found the door locked. Although she smelled the faint odor of gas, Dempsey said, she was not overly concerned.
She said that as long ago as last summer her mother had complained to the landlord about the smell of gas in the house. ILLUSTRATION: BILL TIERNAN/Staff
[Color Photo]
Mashauna Dempsey, center, found the victims, one of whom was her
mother, on Monday, her 17th birthday. With her are, left, cousin
Ayanna Reid, 16, and neighbor Alberta Williams. They were waiting
for firefighters and police to complete their investigation.
THREE VICTIMS
William E. Dempsey
Lakisha Dempsey
Julia Dempsey
Staff Map
THE SILENT KILLER
KRT
SOURCES: Chicago Tribune, Carbon Monoxide Health and Safety
Association, First Alert
[For a copy of the chart, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: FATALITES CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING by CNB