Donations pour in for family hit by fire

BETHPAGE, Mo. -- Strangers were donating money, food and furniture to help a poor Southwest Missouri family begin to rebuild and bury seven people killed in a mobile home fire.

Meanwhile, a coroner said Friday the three adult female victims were so badly burned that DNA testing will be required to ensure identification. The test was expected to take at least two weeks, delaying burial for them, as well as the man and three children who died.

"We know who the people were that were in the fire, but we need to positively match the names of the three women to the bodies," McDonald County Deputy Coroner Judy Duncan said.

Flames spread quickly through the 12-by-70 foot mobile home where 13 people were sleeping. Two adults and four children escaped through the front door, but the seven people sleeping at the other end of the home were unable to reach the back door or crawl out of a tiny window.

Investigators blamed the fire on a malfunction in an electric stove being used to heat the mobile home as temperatures dipped into the 20s Thursday.

The victims were identified as James "Sonny" Garner, 60; his wife, Mary Garner, 61; family friend Shirley Lucy, 58; Ruby Garner, 31, the ex-wife of Robert Garner, one of those who escaped; and three children, James "Christopher", 9, Krisinda, 5, and April, 3. Mary and James Garner had adopted the children.

'Real thoughtful family'

A memorial was planned for Sunday at Ozark Funeral Home in Anderson. Relatives were waiting to completed burial plans, pending the DNA tests on Mary Garner, Ruby Garner and Lucy, funeral home spokeswoman Jeannine Wolff said.

Plans to bury Lucy were being made by her relatives in Arkansas. Relatives clarified Friday that the Garners considered her family, but she was not related by blood or marriage.

"They were a real thoughtful family," friend Sharon Crider said Friday. "My husband and I are really touched by the things they did for us."