{"id":185794,"date":"2026-05-06T23:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T23:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/185794\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T23:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T23:54:07","slug":"mother-of-erie-fire-victims-charged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/185794\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother of Erie fire victims charged"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/talkerie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/hirz_woodardpresser.jpg\" data-caption=\"Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo by Joel Natalie, TalkErie.com.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/hirz_woodardpresser-640x427.jpg\"   alt=\"Hirz\" title=\"hirz_woodardpresser\"\/><\/a>Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo by Joel Natalie, TalkErie.com.<\/p>\n<p>Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz issued the following release Wednesday:<\/p>\n<p>Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz announced today that charges have been filed against a local mother following a tragic house fire that claimed the lives of her three young children.<\/p>\n<p>Danozjna Williams has been charged with Third Degree Homicide, Aggravated Assault, Endangering Welfare of Children, and Recklessly Endangering Another Person.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, March 29, 2026, members of the City of Erie Fire Department and City of Erie Police Department were dispatched to 535 \u00bd East 26th St., #2, upstairs, for a structure fire.<\/p>\n<p>Upon entering the second-floor apartment through the south side door, the firefighters located three children in a bedroom at the north end of the apartment: T.B. (dob 7\/24\/20); D.H. (dob 9\/1\/22) and A.A-M (dob 10\/24\/25). No adults were in the residence at the time.<\/p>\n<p>T.B. and D.H. were transported to UPMC Hamot and subsequently pronounced deceased. Five-month-old A.A-M was life flighted to UPMC Children\u2019s Hospital in Pittsburgh for advanced medical treatment. She later succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead on April 3, 2026, at 5: 10 p.m., due to cardiac arrest following inhalation injury.<\/p>\n<p>Erie Police Detective James Langdon and Detective Sergeant Dave Madurski commenced an investigation, which revealed Williams left her children without supervision for an extended period to facilitate a drug transaction. The fire broke out while Williams was away from the home, and the children were trapped inside, alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a heartbreaking, but completely preventable tragedy,\u201d said District Attorney Hirz. \u201cThe evidence shows these young children were left without supervision in a situation where they needed their mother to protect them and keep them safe. That duty was abandoned, with devastating consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DA Hirz also expressed gratitude to the first responders, stating: \u201cWe want to commend the courage and professionalism of our firefighters and law enforcement officers. They responded swiftly, battled dangerous conditions, and faced the<br \/>unimaginable task of recovering these young victims. We are incredibly grateful for their service to our community\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The investigation remains ongoing. As with all criminal cases, charges, and any discussion thereof, are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo by Joel Natalie, TalkErie.com. Erie County District Attorney&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-185794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}