Mother's death ruled a homicide in Brooklyn fire

(Weeksville-WABC, May 7, 2007) (WABC) -- A 31-year-old mother was killed in a Brooklyn fire, but firefighters were able to rescue her 4-year-old daughter.

But now cops say the mother may have been murdered before the fire.

The fire broke out Monday morning on Rochester Avenue in Weeksville.

Eyewitness News reporter Michelle Charlesworth is at the scene with details.

This little girl just turned four a few weeks ago and now she has lost her mother. We understand that all day she has been at the hospital calling for her. Now, the medical examiner's has decided this was a homicide and that the cause of death was manual strangulation.

Passed out from the black smoke that filled the second floor apartment, the four-year-old little girl was carried out in the arms of a firefighter. Firefighters found 31-year-old Wanette Douglas unresponsive and her daughter T'kyha unconscious.

Medics would later learn that the girl's mother had been stabbed over and over again.

Wynette is described as devoted to her little girl and friendly to everyone in the neighborhood.

"They are nice people ... I never see them having any problems ... just really nice people," a neighbor said.

Earlier in the day, friends and family came to see the burned-out shell of the home.

Mr. Wellington Sharpe is the young girl's daycare principal. He went to see her at the hospital where she had been asking for her mother all morning.

"The child is always well kept, clean, neat. You could see the relationship with the mother and the daughter ... very, very close," he said.

The mother, we understand, had just received a job with the Transit Authority and things had been looking up for her.

And there is some good news however, the 4-year-old girl was being treated for smoke inhalation and physically, she is expected to be fine.

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