Hue and cry wailing for woman and kids who burned alive

February trailer fire claimed three lives

Bosqueville – Her eyes peer out at the reader from multiple images in the photos and friends columns of a Facebook page.

Like a classic portrait hanging in an ancient gallery, they follow one from left to right, right to left, a trick of perspective, as if tracking that which is unseen.

Keri Nicole Schlasman-Cooper is angry. She burns with the anger of a sister who is sure her next of kin died a violent death, helpless to escape a roaring fire that also took the lives of two of her children.

Her anger burns out through her words. They are the words of the hue and cry, not the well-proportioned professional language of the information or the indictment crafted by a legal professional, but the words of the grieving, the afflicted. Ms. Cooper is one of the mourning relatives who are making their way through all the well-known stages of adjustment to that which is a grievous event, the violent deaths of close relatives.

There is shock, panic, anger, depression - all clearly expressed in her words.

A photo of a graphic: “You used to say youu would kill anyone who hurt me. So why are you still living?”

On February 16 of this year, at 6:30 p.m., her sister Ashley Dawn Rogers and her three children were trapped in a fire in a mobile home where they lived at 6312 N. 19^th St. Neighbors heard their screams as the sudden and intense fire ripped through the dwelling, blocking their route to escape. A woman was driven back by the flames. A neighbor boy fought his way through a back door and saved the life of a 3-year-old son.

The laconic words of the report filed by the Waco Fire Department make it very clear that the point of origin was a sudden blaze that sprung from a couch in the den, or common room of the trailer. The initial source of heat is unknown, but when the firefighters arrived 4 minutes after the blaze was first reported, 4 of them were burned by the heat of the flames and the steam generated from cooling water sprayed on the fire.

In raising the hue and cry, Ms. Cooper calls for the arrest and indictment of an unnamed person or persons she suspects intentionally set a fire near the door of the trailer where her sister lived, a roaring fire that would not allow her escape and claimed the lives of her children.

Her words: “I miss Ashley, Madisyn and Gage. I wish I could have been a better role model and maybe you wouldn't have been hanging with murdering cold-blooded trash...But I got faith in God & he will punish those responsible for what they did to u if I gotta lose my own life to see them to hell personally.”

On another page dedicated to “Mia Justice” that bears her snapshot, “Yeah Ashley was a beautiful person. And when those C__M warrants are filed for y'all and they play catch'em and lock'em all up and the bonds will be too much there won't be no getting out then. And Texas serves up a bump for murderers called the death penalty.

“I can't wait to watch those cocky, think y'all got away with something ass smiles fall into 'Watch ur head' dumbfounded as y'all are being place in the backseat of a police cruiser. And ur last bump will be lethal injection – which is my opinion...”

A bump is a slang term used by methamphetamine addicts when they refer to an injection of the drug that brings on an intense feeling of well-being, euphoric reactions, and an invincible attitude that everything is right, right, right with the world – until the crash, which brings on horrible feelings of depression, an inability to sleep or eat – or do much of anything that a person needs to do in order to survive and thrive.

A Waco police department detective has determined that the cause of the three deaths was accidental.

AWaco Fire Department arson investigator is still actively pursuing aninvestigation into the cause of the fatal fire.