Deadly fire caused by overloaded circuit in small shed

DUTCHTOWN, Mo. -- A fatal fire in Dutchtown that killed a 16-year-old unwed mother and her 4-month-old son was accidental, caused by an overloaded electrical circuit in a makeshift house, Cape Girardeau County Coroner Mike Hurst said Wednesday.

The fire also seriously injured the child's father, Tim Moore Jr., 21. Badly burned, he was airlifted to St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis on Tuesday. Moore was fighting for his life on Wednesday, a day after his 21st birthday.

Moore's lungs were badly burned, family members said. He also suffered burns to his face, throat, chest, back and legs. "He is in really bad shape," said Pam Powless of Cape Girardeau, Moore's aunt.

Family members said Moore hadn't been told yet of the deaths of his girlfriend and son. They said his condition might deteriorate if he knew they were dead.

Moore's girlfriend, Rachel Lynne Skaggs and their son, Brett Moore, died of smoke inhalation in a converted 8-by-12-foot windowless, wooden shed. The structure was several yards from the house occupied by Tim Moore's parents, Tim and Barbara Moore.

"They had a bed, a bunch of blankets, a space heater, a radio and a light," said Heather Moore, the fire victim's sister, who lives in the Dutchtown house with her parents.

"They stayed out there before," she said. "The reason they were out at the shed is my mom doesn't allow them to fool around in our house."

The deadly fire has added to tensions between the Moore family and Skaggs' parents.

Skaggs' parents, Joseph and Alanna Skaggs, who live near Marble Hill, Mo., blame Tim Moore Jr. and his family for taking their daughter and grandchild away from them and ultimately for their deaths.

"They killed my little girl. It was all their fault," Alanna Skaggs said on Wednesday shortly after making funeral arrangements for her daughter and grandchild. Graveside services are scheduled today at the Grassy Friendship Cemetery near Grassy, Mo.

Skaggs said her daughter, the boyfriend and the baby were living with the Moore family in Dutchtown.

Skaggs called her daughter's boyfriend a bum. "He bounced from job to job. He would quit because he didn't want to work," Alanna Skaggs said.

But Moore family members said Tim Moore Jr. was a kind man who loved both his girlfriend and his son. They said he and Rachel Skaggs had recently moved into an old farmhouse they were fixing up near Oak Ridge, Mo., within sight of Interstate 55. He had paid the first month's rent, Heather Moore said.

Tim Moore Jr. had worked as a nurse's aide at Monticello House, a Jackson nursing home, for several months. But he recently had been out of work, family members said.

Moore family members said Rachel wanted to leave home and said her parents beat her.

Alanna Skaggs denied that her daughter was mistreated at home. "We set rules," she said. "We expected them to be followed."

Following the birth of Brett Moore on Aug. 12, Rachel Skaggs and her baby stayed at her parents' home for about a week.

Heather Moore said Rachel Skaggs wanted to leave with the baby and asked the Moore family for help. "We went out and picked her up," Heather Moore said.

Heather Moore said she and other members of her family helped take care of the baby over the past several months at their Dutchtown home.

Alanna Skaggs said she pleaded for the Bollinger County Sheriff's Department and the prosecuting attorney to forcibly bring her daughter and grandchild back home. She asked the Missouri Division of Family Services to intervene.

None of the agencies came to her aid, Skaggs said.

Skaggs said she was told that running away from home isn't a crime.

Stephen Gray, Bollinger County prosecuting attorney, said he told Alanna Skaggs that no crime had been committed. Gray said Rachel Skaggs wasn't taken against her will and there was no evidence she was in danger.

Gray said Tim Moore Jr. wasn't 21 at the time of the Skaggs' complaint. As a result, Moore couldn't be charged with a statutory sex crime.

"In a textbook world, she isn't supposed to go against her parents. But no judge that I know of is ever going to give an order that that girl live with her parents," Gray said.

The Moore family lives on property at 321 County Road 216 owned by Anthony Varnon, an associate professor of accounting at Southeast Missouri State University.

Varnon said Tuesday that he never gave permission to the Moores to move into the house, which had been vacant and vandalized in the past.

But members of the Moore family said Wednesday that Varnon gave them permission to live in the house rent-free if they fixed it up.

"When they moved in there, there we no lights in the place. There was no glass in the building," said Powless, Tim Moore Jr.'s aunt.

When asked about the agreement Wednesday, Varnon said he had no further comments.

Social workers on Wednesday expressed dismay that Tim Moore Jr., his girlfriend and their baby would sleep in a converted shed for even a single night.

Dena Pehlman Simpson, director of operations at the Safe House for Women in Cape Girardeau, said the center often gets calls from homeless, single mothers.

"I think there are many more families and many more 16- or 17-year-olds that may be living in shacks or living in unsafe conditions," she said.

But Maj. Robert Gauthier of the Salvation Army in Cape Girardeau said the living conditions are uncommon, and sad.

"This is a very tragic thing," he said. "Folks shouldn't be living in that setting."

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123