Probe Underway after Firefighters Miss Body in Wellston, MO, House Fire

Bryce Gray

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

(TNS)

A local fire department announced Sunday it is conducting an internal investigation after a man's body was found by family members two days after a fire burned his Wellston home, despite initial search efforts by first responders.

Last Tuesday night, the Mid County Fire Protection District responded to the fire at the home of Wayne Vann, 69, near Ogden Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive. The department said that, despite two searches by firefighters, a family member found Vann's remains in the home on Thursday.

Family members have questioned the effort that the department put into the case, noting the small size of the ruined home and their own discovery of Vann's body in about 10 minutes Thursday.

The Mid County Fire Protection District has so far been unable to explain why the family found Vann's body, and fire crews did not. The department said Sunday that it had reached out to Vann's family.

“I have left messages with one of his family members expressing our condolences and to assure them that we are investigating the sequence of events related to the discovery of his remains and will release those findings to the family once we have them,” said Chief Randy Sanders, in a release Sunday.

The department also released a timeline of events stretching from when the fire was called in on Tuesday night to the discovery of Vann's body on Thursday morning. On Wednesday, use of a cadaver dog was requested from the St. Louis Fire Department, but a dog was unavailable.

It's currently unclear whether Vann died in the blaze, or before the fire began. An autopsy will not be available for several weeks, the department said.

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