Blaze guts empty apartment in Cape

A vacant apartment apparently used by squatters burst into flames late Thursday afternoon in Cape Girardeau.

The apartment, part of a home converted to three apartments at 419 S. Sprigg St., was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived shortly before 6 p.m. Firefighters at the scene were unsure how the blaze began, battalion chief Mike Ramsey said.

Flames shot out windows and through the roof of the apartment. Firefighters quickly brought the fire under control, but Sprigg Street between Morgan Oak Street and Highway 74 was closed for about 90 minutes. The fire did not spread to the other apartments in the house, but the one occupied unit will be uninhabitable because of smoke and water damage.

Firefighters provided no immediate estimate of the cost of the loss.

As she watched firefighters work to extinguish hot spots, landlady Debra Hamilton told Cape Girardeau police Sgt. Rick Price that she had sought police help to control intruders.

"I called you and told you there were crackheads in my building," Hamilton told Price.

Hamilton told Price that the lone legal tenant of the building, Robert Jackson, had called her and warned her that two people had been using the upstairs apartment. Hamilton said she had called police, "and they told me they would send somebody by."

Price said he was unaware of the calls but did not challenge Hamilton's remarks.

Hamilton owns the building with her husband, Charles Hamilton. She said in an interview the apartment was vacant and unfurnished with no utility service.

Jackson said he tried without success to warn the intruders away from the apartment. He said he had seen a man and a woman going in. "I've been telling them they should board it up," he said.

Hamilton said locks to the upstairs apartment had been broken several times.

There was someone in the apartment above almost every night, Jackson said. "Every time when I would watch TV, I would hear them," he said.

Jackson was working at Don's Store 24 less than a block away when the fire broke out. The emergency lights attracted his attention, he said, and he only realized his home was on fire after walking outside.

He immediately called his girlfriend to retrieve their daughter's dog, Fluffy, from the apartment.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126