NEW ALBANY, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana house fire where three
young siblings died and a fourth was badly burned began when a teenager
fired a flare into the home in a property dispute with one of the
residents, authorities said Tuesday.
Cody Cashion, 18, faces three
counts of murder and one count of arson resulting in injury, Floyd
County Prosecutor Keith Henderson announced Tuesday at a news
conference. The charges are in connection to the fire that occurred Jan.
4 in New Albany, located in southern Indiana across the Ohio River from
Louisville, Ky.
Cashion, of New Albany, already was in custody in
nearby Clark County on charges including attempted murder of a police
officer stemming from a Jan. 8 car crash. He remained at the Clark
County Jail in Jeffersonville on Tuesday, and records there did not
indicate whether he has an attorney.
Investigators initially
believed the fire started in a front bedroom and might have been caused
by a space heater, but Henderson said witnesses provided information
linking the fire to a flare shot from a motor vehicle. Two-year-old
Trinity Hughes, 4-year-old Tyrese Hughes and 6-year-old Tai’zah Hughes
died of smoke inhalation, while 5-year-old Taty’ana Hughes was rescued
by firefighters and remained in an Indianapolis hospital Tuesday.
The
children and their mother, Theresa Hughes, 29, were at the home
visiting a friend. WHAS-TV reported that investigators believe Cashion
did not know children were inside the home at the time.
Henderson
said during the news conference that Cashion fired the flare into the
home as "retaliation" for a property dispute, and that his intended
target was not there at the time.
The fire gutted the front room where the children died, and the rest of the house sustained extensive
heat and smoke damage.
The case remains under investigation and others may be arrested, Henderson said.
Cashion
pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of attempted murder, resisting law
enforcement, reckless driving and motor vehicle theft after police say
he intentionally crashed an SUV into a Clarksville police cruiser.
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