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Detroit Home Firebombed With Six Children Inside

DETROIT (WWJ) - An investigation is underway into the firebombing of a Detroit home with six children inside.

Lt. Dave Fornell of the Detroit Fire Department said it's incredible that the family of eight made it out alive and uninjured when the house on Marlowe Street, near Intervale, was set ablaze, early Tuesday morning.

He told WWJ's Sandra McNeill said evidence was found at the scene leading investigators to believe that the fire was intentionally set.

"When our investigators go in they do what they call a cause and origin; and, you know, the presence of flammable liquids, the burn patters, that type of thing led them to come to the conclusion that yes, is absolutely was arson," Fornell said. "And now they're moving forward to find out who did it."

Ebony Walls told WXYZ-TV that she and her husband were awake when it happened, otherwise they and all of her kids — ages  1, 2, 4, 7, 9 and 11 — would be dead.

Walls believes the attack was in retaliation for evidence she provided to police in a sex assault case involving her sister-in-law in Warren.

"We don't even know what do right now. our kids are at our neighbors house crying, scared," Walls said. "You didn't care about us or my kids. Even if you would've just targeted me, you didn't have to target my kids."

Bill Dwyer with Warren police said there has already been an arrest in West Virginia for witness intimidation in the sex assault case, but it is not in connection with the fire.

"We have a person in custody that we're going to be extraditing back to Michigan, and it was witness intimidation," Dwyer said. "We're waiting for the extradition to be signed."

No suspects in the firebombing have been named.

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