Published: Monday, November 27, 2006 3:57 PM CST
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Officials with the Illinois state fire marshal's office spent Friday and part of Saturday investigating a mobile home fire near Dale that claimed three lives earlier Friday.
The fire left two children and one adult dead in the mobile home that housed eight people.
Katherine Ann Demuth, 41, and her son 16-year-old son, Andrew "Andy" Demuth, died in the fire, along with 5-year-old James Farley. The other five residents escaped the blaze with only minor injuries.
They were Katherine's brother, Joseph Demuth, and his son, Mark; Katherine's boyfriend, Bobby Leek; James Farley's mother, Dawn Garrison; and James's sister, a 6-year-old who was not identified by the family.
Joseph Demuth suffered minor burns trying to get to his sister and others trapped in the fire. Bobby Leek was transported to Hamilton Memorial Hospital in McLeansboro, where he was treated for a back injury and released.
"We were all asleep when my girlfriend heard someone yelling," said Joseph Demuth. "We jumped up and tried to get everybody out as fast as we could, but not everybody made it out."
Investigators had not officially determined the cause of the fire, but Demuth said he believed the fire started in an old refrigerator in a middle bedroom.
My product would have shut that refrigerator off and might have prevented the fire.
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