Autistic teenager dies in townhouse fire
Sad, sad news from WBAL.com on Christmas Eve: 15-year old Jerrell Williamson died in a fire in his family’s Frederick townhouse on the night of December 23rd. Jerrell and his twin brother, Joshua, both have autism; police are investigating if Joshua, who survived, ignited his and his brother’s bed with a lighter:
Family members revealed he [Joshua] had a history of setting fires. But, investigators have also determined that the diagnosis of autism for both brothers played a major role in the incident.
Thinking of Jerrell and Joshua and their family.
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1 opinion for Autistic teenager dies in townhouse fire
Autism Vox » In memoriam Jerrell Williamson
Dec 27, 2006 at 1:05 am
[…] I have been reading more about 15-year-old twins Jerrell and Joshua Williamson, who have autism, and the more I read, the sadder the story gets. Jerrell died late on Saturday night, December 23rd. According to authorities, one of the twins set fire to a pile of paper under their bed with a cigarette lighter as their mother, Carolyn Stone, and her boyfriend, Ray Pulliam, were watching television downstairs in their Frederick, Maryland townhouse. As noted in an article in the December 26th Washington Post, Stone does not know how a lighter was brought into the house, as she and Pulliam do not smoke; last year, her oldest son had brought a lighter into their house. The twins had found and used it to start a small fire that was quickly extinguished. […]
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