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One child dead, another critically injured in house fire

By Lori Brown - bio | email | Twitter | Facebook

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - A three-year-old boy died and a two-year-old boy was critically injured after a house fire Monday afternoon in the 1200 block of Effie.

Officials said the boys were alone inside the home when the fire broke out. Firefighters said the two little boys inhaled so much smoke they were already in critical condition when rescuers got to them.

The boys' aunt, Marilyn Wilson, said she and their mother left them alone Monday afternoon to go shopping.  Wilson, who spoke to the media one hour after the fire - before the three-year-old died - said she did not regret leaving the boys by themselves.

"I don't know how the house got caught on fire," she said. "I don't know if the boys set it on fire, or somebody throwed something in there to set it on fire."

Wilson said she and the boys' mother, Melanie Dunn, had been gone about an hour when they received a phone call about the fire.

"She was alright," Wilson said of Dunn's reaction to the fire.  "She went down there, seen them in the ambulance.  She didn't get in. Guess she went to Le Bonheur."

Wilson said Dunn is a 23-year-old single mother.  A third son, age five, was at school at the time of the fire.

Wilson said Dunn doesn't leave the children home alone "all the time."

"Some kind of way they set something on fire," she said. "I don't know how it happened, because we weren't there."
    
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Memphis police say Dunn may face criminal neglect homicide charges after the medical examiner releases the official cause of death.

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