Fatal Haverhill fire investigated
Boy, aunt trapped in attic are mourned
HAVERHILL - Despite disabilities including a speech impediment, Mary Pina easily communicated her love to her 6-year-old nephew, Daquon, whom she often hugged and rocked to sleep.
On Friday night, Pina and her nephew died together in a fire at their Warren Street home, trapped in an attic bedroom surrounded by smoke and flames. Family members who escaped the blaze were devastated, recalling yesterday how the 50-year-old woman and the first-grade boy shared an affection that transcended words.
"Daquon knew Mary's touch," said Mary Clark, who lived with them. "She would hold him and rock him and rock him."
The fire broke out shortly after 9 p.m. and took a deep emotional toll on the neighborhood and rescuers. Several hours after the fire, neighbors stood in the street staring up at the charred attic window in disbelief. Officials said firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze quickly, although getting to the attic room proved difficult. The staircase was narrow, steep, and cluttered, Deputy Fire Chief Brian Moriarty said. Then firefighters found the bodies of the woman and the boy.
"Two lives were lost - one of them a child," Moriarty said yesterday. "That's hard on the guys."
Investigators from the State Fire Marshal's office remained at the scene throughout much of the night attempting to determine the fire's cause. State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said yesterday afternoon that no determination had been made, adding that the investigation could continue for several days. The wooden white-and-blue house with the Virgin Mary statue in the front yard was blackened and vacant yesterday, the front yard littered with burned children's books, crayons, and sneakers tossed from the home by firefighters.
For years, the home has been a refuge for Mary Clark's extended family. She and her husband, Ford, own the house and let her brother, Joseph Pina, live with them. When Pina married Mary Pina in 1990, she moved in too.
Clark said both had learning disabilities and met through a career resources program in Haverhill. Recalling the early days of their friendship, she said neighbors used to complain at the way they shouted flirtatiously across the street to each other as they waited for their separate buses.
"One day she finally crossed the street," Clark said. "What a wonderful love story."
Joseph Pina was staying with a friend yesterday, Clark said.
Clark added that Daquon, whose nickname is Daquon (pronounced day-day), had lived with her since 2002. Clark said she took custody of the boy and his three siblings, when their mother, Pearl Davis, was unable to care for them. The children included Daquon's 8-year-old brother, Davon, and his 10- and 14-year-old sisters, Shanty and Shakita.
Clark said her own daughter, 14-year-old Eleanor, also lived in the house. Daquon and Davon shared a bedroom on the second floor.
Yesterday, neighbors described them as a typically friendly, happy bunch.
"There was a lot of kids there," said longtime neighbor Ralph West. And they were glad to have them, he said of Mary and Ford Clark.
Clark described a happy, bustling home life, despite little money. The family's Warren Street yard was filled with children's toys and bicycles. Photos of Daquon at his 6th birthday party show a child surrounded by gifts, including an oversized red plastic bat and ball. Clark, a warm, motherly woman in her 50s with dark curly hair, said she raised the children to be deeply religious. They were members of Portland Street Baptist Church in Haverhill and regularly attended services and Sunday school there.
Daquon was a first-grader at Golden Hill Elementary School in Haverhill.
Sitting at the kitchen table in her sister's apartment on nearby Nichols Street, Clark grieved the deaths yesterday afternoon. Daquon's mother, Pearl Davis, sat beside her as dozens of family members and friends streamed in to offer condolences. Davis, who lives in Worcester, said family members called her and friends rushed her to Haverhill last night.
Slumped over the waxy tablecloth and slices of pizza gone cold, Davis sobbed holding her face in her hands.
Referring to Clark, she called her "the most powerful, strong, religious person you would ever know."
Then a family friend entered the room and handed her a bundle containing the charred pages of a children's Bible recovered from the house. Davis shook and cried again. "I am so lost," she said.
She slid the package across the table to Clark, who looked at it quietly.
"I know they're walking in heaven now," she said. "I know Mary's got him by the hand."
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com. 