Coroner identifies father, 4 children killed in Jeannette blaze

Twin brothers Tyler and Kenneth King did everything together.

Their families would go on vacations together and, until a few months ago, they worked at the same place.

“Even growing up, we’d sleep together on the floor,” Kenneth King said. “We had beds. We’d just sleep downstairs on the floor just because we wanted to be together, not separated in our beds.”

King, his mother and their family were devastated Wednesday to learn Tyler J. King, 27, and four of his children — Kyson, 7; Kinzleigh, 6; Keagan, 3; and Korbyn, 1 month — were killed in an overnight house fire in Jeannette. Two more children, ages 10 and 1, and their mother, Miranda John, who is King’s fiancee, were rescued from the flames and hospitalized. Family members said they were being treated for smoke inhalation.

“He was my best friend. … I could rely on him over anybody. I am so lost without him,” Kenneth King said. “I just don’t even know what to think anymore without him being here.”

Firefighters and police responded to an inferno at the two-story Guy Street home at 12:02 a.m. Wednesday. Neighbor Jack Mull said he went outside to have a cigarette when he saw the home’s front porch in flames.

He saw Miranda John standing on the roof of the home, screaming about her kids. He grabbed a ladder and joined forces with firefighters and Officers Bryan DeFelice, Matt Painter and Jacob Fazekas and Sgt. Jim Phillips to rescue the woman and two children.

“The mother, she just didn’t want to give up,” Mull said, adding the flames were spreading and she was trying to go back inside. “It’s the worst thing you could ever imagine, knowing they were in there.”

Mull described them as a good, loving family.

“It just makes you sick in the stomach,” he said.

Investigators were at the scene on Guy Street for hours Wednesday to recover the five bodies, sifting through what was left of the home where all eight lived. Jeannette fire Chief Bill Frye and Westmoreland County Coroner Tim Carson said authorities had to take their time, at first digging out debris by hand and later with an excavator in an effort to locate the bodies in the rubble.

“Emotions are definitely raw,” Carson said. “You got kids’ toys and stuff thrown throughout the yard. It definitely takes its toll on you.”

King’s mother, Delena Lewis, said he was a loving family man.

“My son was a very hard worker, and he changed his life whenever he had his kids,” she said.

Her grandchildren loved to play outside and with their cousins.

“They loved being around their mom and dad,” Lewis said.

Firefighters initially had issues with getting enough water pressure from a hydrant at the intersection of Guy and Second streets.

“The hydrant wasn’t giving us enough water to make it up the hill,” Frye said.

Firefighters had to call a second alarm to get five additional tanker trucks to the scene as a result.

“That’s when we were able to get sufficient water to bring the fire under control,” he said. “By the point we got water, the main house was already collapsing.”

The flames damaged a neighboring home about 5 feet away. The occupants were able to get out safely. The blaze also damaged sections of fire hose, Jeannette’s ladder truck and other neighboring homes. A Jeannette firefighter suffered a broken elbow in a fall and was taken to a hospital, Frye said.

“The radiant heat was crazy,” he said.

By Wednesday morning, all that remained of the home were two brick porch supports and a brick fireplace. The neighboring home looked like it had been cut in half by the fire.

Smoke wafted up as investigators worked. State police fire marshals are investigating the cause. Rulings on the cause and manner of death for King and the children are pending.

Shawnee Riggar said King, her grandson, spent a lot of time with his twin brother’s family.

“We loved him,” she said. “He was always talking about the children. He loved them.”

Jeannette City School District Superintendent Matt Jones said three of the children were students in the district, along with their older brother.

“It’s been a difficult day,” he said. “We just want to support our kids any way that we can, support our staff any way that we can. It’s been heart-wrenching.”

Counselors, social workers and other support staff are being made available to students in school buildings, he said.

Frye said firefighters used the hydrant at Guy and Second in 2017 to extinguish a blaze at a neighboring home that has since been replaced. The 2017 fire was limited to a couple rooms and didn’t move as fast as Wednesday’s inferno.

“We ran three lines and fought a pretty well-involved fire that day with no issues with that one hydrant,” he said. “So I asked (the authority) to investigate to see if there was any obstructions or maintenance issues with the hydrant.”