Friday, Jul. 18, 2008

2 arrested, 1 sought in fatal Macon arson

Investigators said the suspects arrested Thursday morning in a fatal arson used gasoline to set a house on Moseley Avenue ablaze.

Macon police Capt. Jimmy Barbee said other evidence was recovered in Unionville on Wednesday night, but declined to give specifics.

Lt. Carl Fletcher said 27-year-old Latoshia Yvette Wyche of Moore Street was brought in by investigators and was arrested after a lengthy interview.

Anthony Desean Braswell, 36, of Chambers Road, was arrested at his home about 5:30 a.m., Fletcher said.

Both Wyche and Braswell have been charged with two counts of murder and one count of arson, according to Bibb County jail records.

Braswell is additionally charged with violation of parole.

Police are still searching for a third person, 33-year-old Shauntrice Murry, Fletcher said.

An arrest warrant filed with Bibb County Magistrate Court reveals Braswell is accused of pouring gasoline from a plastic sports drink bottle onto the porch of 417 Moseley Ave. to start the blaze at 4 a.m. Monday.

Murry and Wyche accompanied Braswell, according to the warrant.

When firefighters arrived at the house, located four blocks west of Pio Nono Avenue, it was completely engulfed in flames.

A funeral for the two young boys killed in the fire is scheduled for 2 p.m. today at New Macedonia Baptist Church in Culloden. Burial will be in the church cemetery. Freeman Funeral Home in Forsyth is handling the arrangements.

A little girl told firefighters she was asleep when the fire started and her uncle woke her. Alarms were going off.

Barbee said a man also woke the children's mother, who went outside, assuming all the children were out safe.

After learning her two sons - Hezekiah Harris, 2, and Tydarious Harris, 4, - were still inside, the mother ran in to save them, Barbee said. "She couldn't find them and she went back out," he said.

The mother suffered a minor burn to her shoulder.

When the first firefighters arrived and heard the boys were still inside, two of them jumped on top of a green trash can and climbed inside the house. The entire house was engulfed in flames except for the bedroom where the boys were sleeping.

The firefighters quickly searched the smoke-filled room with their hands and found the two boys. Outside they administered CPR.

Hezekiah Harris was pronounced dead at 4:33 a.m. while his brother, Tydarious, died about 10 minutes later. They died of smoke inhalation, officials said.

Because the children died as a result of the arson, their deaths have been ruled as homicides.

Fletcher said Braswell, Wyche and Murry knew the people at the house.

FIGHT POSSIBLE MOTIVE

Barbee said there was a fight on the night of the fire a couple of blocks down from the house that involved residents of the house and the suspects.

"It was a simple fight between the women," he said. "Alcohol was involved. It wasn't anything that should have led to something like this."

Barbee said the women involved in the fight sustained minor injuries.

Police said they do not know what the fight was about.

Fletcher said there's no documentation of previous trouble between the residents and the suspects.

Barbee said one of the suspects confessed after being confronted with information officers learned through interviews and tips.

"That broke the case," he said, adding the information led officers to other names and the physical evidence recovered in Unionville.

Police would not reveal which suspect confessed.

Officers have not said what specific part Braswell, Wyche and Murry individually played in the crime.

"They all participated in one shape or another in the planning or the follow-up of the tragedy," Fletcher said.

Braswell has had several run-ins with the law over the past two decades, according to Bibb County Superior Court records. Among them, he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in 1991 after being accused of beating a man with a baseball bat along with two other men Oct. 28, 1990, according to his indictment.

Braswell was sentenced to serve two years in prison, 18 years on probation and pay $61,006 restitution for the aggravated assault, according to court records.

Georgia Department of Corrections records show he was released from prison in November 1993.

During the following decade, Braswell's probation was revoked several times for drug offenses, according to Bibb County Superior Court records.

He pleaded guilty to criminal trespassing and failure to pay court fees in September 1994, according to court records.

The next year he pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana, giving false information to the police, not reporting to his probation officer and not paying court fees, according to court records.

Court records show he also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor marijuana possession in February 1999 and was convicted for selling marijuana and failure to pay court fees in February 2001.

He was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 2002 and served 16 months in prison, according to corrections records.

Braswell was released in August 2005, according to the Department of Corrections.

Braswell and Wyche are being held at the Bibb County Law Enforcement Center without bond, according to jail records.

To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.