Linda Hall could hear her daughter’s dying words as she climbed out her bedroom window, smoke burning her eyes.
“She was calling, ‘Help me momma! Help me momma!’” Hall said.
But the overnight fire was too intense to attempt a rescue of Elise Evans, trapped inside the bathroom of the family’s DeKalb County home. Hall said she knew she’d never see her daughter again.
“I had to leave her,” she said. “It was the hardest thing for me to ever do.”
Hall and her husband, Robert, shared the residence in the 4500 block of John Wesley Court with their step-grandson, Marcus Smith, and Evans, 37.
Neighbors had told reporters that Smith rescued his grandparents from the blaze, but Hall said once they all escaped there was no going back inside.
Smith, 17, broke through a window in the back of the house and raced to the front yard, wanting to do more, Hall said. But by then fire had consumed the home.
Smith, treated for minor injuries, helped his injured grandfather off the ground and to safety away from the blaze. Robert Hall’s face was badly burned, his wife told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and he remains hospitalized at Grady Memorial Hospital.
Linda Hall, treated for smoke inhalation and released, spent Sunday night with family members mourning the loss of her only child.
DeKalb fire officials say they’re still investigating what triggered the deadly fire.
—Staff writer Laura Diamond contributed to this article.
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