Man, 3 Children Perish in House Fire; Wife Escapes

STOCKHOLM, N.Y. (AP) —

An early morning fire tore through a family’s mobile home on Tuesday, killing a man and his three children. The children’s mother escaped but forlornly asked a friend, “What am I going to do without my children?”

Troopers responded around 3 a.m. to a report of a fire at a mobile home with an attachment in Stockholm, a rural town near the Canadian border. They arrived on the scene to learn four people had been trapped inside the home and died.

The mother jumped out of a bedroom window, but the three children were found in a back bedroom. The father was found by the front door, county coroner June Wood said.

“It appeared that he was trying to get to the children and collapsed,” Wood said.

Police identified the victims as William Bugbee, 55; his daughters, Allazza, 5, and Alicia Bugbee, 6; and his stepdaughter, Shaylee Baxter, 14.

“It’s very hard,” Wood said. “Three children.”

Bugbee’s wife, Carrie Bugbee, 36, was taken to a hospital for evaluation. Her friend Annette Peacock said she spoke with her at the hospital.

“She just looked at me and said, ‘Nettie, what am I going to do without my children? My children are my life,’” Peacock said. “Everything was just taken from her.”

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