HOLTS SUMMIT — Three siblings were found dead Friday after a fire swept through their home, just three months after another fire killed two children in this rural Callaway County town.
An autopsy found the three children died of carbon monoxide poisoning from the fire, Callaway County Sheriff Dennis Crane said.
The children's mother and another woman and her child were able to escape, officials said.
The fire was reported about 2:45 a.m., and the two-story home was fully engulfed when firefighters from several area departments arrived, Crane said.
The bodies of 4-year-old Chance Wilkerson and 2-year-old Gracie Wilkerson were found on the floor of their bedrooms. But the flames became too intense and firefighters had to leave before the third child, 6-year-old Trevor Smith, could be found, Crane said. His body was recovered after the fire was contained about 10 a.m.
The three children were siblings, Crane said.
The woman and child who survived were in the basement of the house, where the fire started, and were able to get the victims' mother, Elizabeth Nix, 24, out of the house, Crane said. The names of the other two survivors were not released.
On Jan. 16, 3-year-old Bailey Daniels and her 5-year-old sister, Savannah, died in a fire in a mobile home in Holts Summit. Before that blaze, the rural Callaway County town had gone 10 years without a fire fatality.