Four people -- a woman, her 16- and 13-year-old sons and her 19-year-old niece -- were killed in a "suspicious" fire in west suburban Villa Park Tuesday morning, officials say.
A relative identified the dead as Ursula Nailor, 37, her sons Darnell Holt Jr., 16 and Daniel Nailor, 13, and her niece Dominique Robinson, 19, of Bolingbrook. Daniel would have turned 14 on Saturday, according to relatives.
"We're trying to find out what happened," said Sheila Robinson, the mother of Dominique and the sister of Ursula. "They're not giving us any information."
The Bolingbrook woman through tears described her daughter Dominique as "beautiful" but was too distraught to speak further.
The fire broke out shortly after 7 a.m. at the family's ranch-style house on Summit Road north of the intersection of Summit and Roosevelt roads. The windows at the north end of the light-colored brick ranch were blown out, and smoke still seeped from a gaping hole in the roof in the middle of the morning.
The DuPage County sheriff's office said its fire task force was investigating. "The fire is suspicious. We have ATF on the scene assisting,"said sheriff's spokeswoman Dawn Domrose, referring to the federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
ATF agents brought a dog into the house to check for accelerants "because of the suspiciousness of the fire," Domrose said.
A top DuPage County law enforcement source said prosecutors were seeking a search warrant because of evidence of possible foul play inside the home, which was initially listed by officials as in unincorporated Oakbrook Terrace.
Ursula Nailor had been planning to move out of the house soon and live near her mother in Selma, Ala.
"My daughter was getting ready to move," said Doris Wallace, who moved to Selma three months ago. "She was waiting on her income taxes so she could buy a trailer home. She was going to move in with me until she got her trailer home."
Wallace said family members called her this morning and told her about the fire, but she knew very little about what happened or why.
"Right now, I just don't know, I just don't know," Wallace said, getting ready to board a plane to Chicago. "I'm on my way."
Last night, Nailor and her sons went out to dinner with Robinson and other niece, 9. After dinner, they dropped the 9-year-old girl off at her Bolingbrook home so she could go to school today. Then she drove back to her Villa Park home, Wallace said.
"Dominque drove back behind [Ursula] and followed her back to her house and they all were there," Wallace said. "Dominque stayed there."
She said her daughter was known as "Poodie," Darnell was "DJ" and Daniel "Punn."
"I spoke to her yesterday when she was getting ready to take the kids out," Wallace said. "She was laughing, my granddaughter was texting her to please come and get her. She wanted to go with them, Poodie was taking them out and she always stay's up under Poodie."
Wallace said her daughter drove a school bus for the Falcon company. She said Nailor had a boyfriend who occasionaly stayed at the home.
A neighbor said the victims "were a quiet family, nice people."
"They lived there for three years and were renters," said Ann Bendera, who lives next door to the home.
Bendera said she would often see the children playing in the front yard with the family dog.
Around 7:15 a.m. today, she heard sirens but figured they were going to a hospital nearby. But then she saw the fire trucks and opened the door and saw black smoke everywhere.
"When I heard they died, I thought oh my God," she said.
Copyright 2012 - Chicago Tribune
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
