Boy, 6, killed in Griffin house fire

A 6-year-old boy was killed early Friday in a house fire in Griffin that state officials have ruled accidental.

Franklin Freeman Jr. died in the fire, which started about 8:30 a.m. in the kitchen area of a home in the 1000 block of School Road, state Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Ralph Hudgens said.

A neighbor and a Spalding County sheriff’s deputy pulled Freeman’s 14-year-old brother from a window. He escaped the blaze unharmed, but was taken to a hospital as a precaution, Hudgens said.

“The exact cause was an electrical malfunction in the wall near a microwave oven,” he said.