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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Apartment blaze kills at least seven

The Spokesman-Review

Fire ravaged an apartment building, killing at least seven people, including a child, and authorities said Sunday that they feared the death count could grow.

The fire broke out in the 64-unit, five-story building late Saturday. Firefighters discovered two bodies and a child on the building’s top floor while fighting the blaze, and crews found four more bodies Sunday morning on that floor, Fire Chief Greg Fuller said. The child died en route to a hospital.

The building’s residents included Marshall University students, Fuller said.

Fourteen people were rescued, he said, and one was in critical condition Sunday night. Three were in serious condition. One firefighter was treated for smoke inhalation and released.

Fire Marshal David Bias said it could take days to determine the cause of the blaze, which began in a second-floor unit. From that apartment, flames and smoke shot up utility access channels to the upper floors, Fuller said.

GREENVILLE, N.C.

Church fires put police on alert

Police increased patrols of churches across the city Sunday after fires broke out at two Baptist churches during the night and a break-in was discovered at a third – all within an hour.

“We’re going to be highly visible at our churches,” Greenville Police Chief William Anderson said Sunday.

The speed of the first fire at Memorial Baptist Church led investigators to treat both fires Saturday night as crime scenes, Fire Chief Mike Burton said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, and authorities said they found no signs of fires at any other church in Greenville.

The fire at Unity Free Will Baptist Church, about a mile away from Memorial, was contained to a single room, and damage was estimated at between $30,000 and $40,000.

LOS ANGELES

Simpson calls plot scenario fiction

O.J. Simpson says a chapter from his unpublished book that hypothesizes how he would have killed his ex-wife and her friend was created mostly from a ghostwriter’s research and is not a confession.

“I’m saying it’s a fictional creation,” Simpson said Sunday. “It has so many (factual) holes in it that anybody who knew anything about it would know that I didn’t write it.”

His comments came as Newsweek published a story for its current issue paraphrasing the chapter, titled “The Night in Question,” which the magazine said it had obtained from an anonymous source.

Simpson was acquitted in the 1994 killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman after a yearlong trial. A civil jury later held him liable. On Sunday, Simpson again denied killing the couple.