LEBANON JUNCTION, Ky. (WDRB) — Suspicion fuels a Kentucky family's continued fight for answers more than three years after a pregnant woman and two young girls were killed in a fire in Lebanon Junction.
A rally held Friday morning outside the Bullitt County Courthouse called for answers and demanded another investigation into the cause of the fire that killed 27-year-old Eryn Toogood, her unborn child, her 6-year-old daughter Haisley Heath and 6-year-old Raegan Maraman the morning of Jan. 19, 2023.
The Lebanon Junction Fire Department said at the time crews were sent to the fire at a home on Highway 61, near the Lebanon Junction library, just before 4 a.m. that day. When they arrived, they found the home on fire with heavy smoke. Authorities said at the time they believed all three died of smoke inhalation.
"It's taken me years to feel like I can stand on my own two feet and fight for her," said Karlie Lynch.
Lynch, whose daughter Raegan was killed in the fire, is one of the loudest voices in the fight for answers.
"It's hard to accept that she's really gone," she said.
Lynch said the fire happened while Raegan was visiting her ex-husband Billy Maraman. He was in the home with his girlfriend, Toogood, and her daughter, as well as Raegan, when the fire happened. He was the only person who made it out of the fire alive.
"He is completely clean," said Lynch. "No soot on him, no burns, his beard's not singed, he's completely calm."
She can't make sense of that, and her experience with domestic violence with Maraman raises her suspicions.
"It never made sense to me," she said. "How you could have her, and then set her down in a burning house and then leave her."
The state fire marshal's office said the cause of the fire was undetermined. But Lynch and other family friends, like Kara Hodge, say they feel like the investigation done by the Bullitt County Sheriff's Office wasn't thorough.
"I want the people who took oaths to protect and serve to do their jobs," said Hodge. "I want another investigation opened."
Chief Deputy Alex Payne said there's no factual evidence that supports the speculation surrounding the tragedy.
"There was no criminal nexus that we could find, that the fire marshal could find, that would tie him or anyone else to a crime that started that fire," Payne said. "Nothing."
But the family looks at the fire wondering how out of two children and two able-bodied adults, only one person made it out unscathed.
"I think that's a valid question, and I guess only the good Lord knows that," said Payne.
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