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Bodies found in burned Cairo house identified; cause of death was gunshot wounds

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Southeast Missourian

CAIRO, Ill. -- The two women found dead in a Cairo home after a fire died from gunshot wounds, the Illinois State Police announced.

The victims were identified by the Alexander County, Ill., State's Attorney's office as Beatrice Barber, 29, of Cairo, and Eva Hill, 27, of Charleston, Mo., a news release from the state police said.

Illinois State Police, the Illinois State Fire Marshal and the Cairo Police Department are cooperating in the investigation. The bodies were found when firefighters responded to a house fire in the 600 block of 37th Street in Cairo shortly before noon Monday.

From the WSIL TV Channel 3 Website...

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Fire Hampers Cairo Death Investigation

By Dana Jay

CAIRO--- Fire damage is making it difficult to investigate a pair of deaths in Alexander County.

Illinois State Police detectives are expected back in Cairo Wednesday morning to follow up on leads collected during autopsies Tuesday afternoon.

"We're still…piecing things together trying to make sense of everything that we have,” said Stan Diggs of the Illinois State Police.

Fire crews were called to the 600 block of 37th street late Monday morning. When the fire was out investigators found the bodies of two people.

Police aren’t releasing the results of autopsies or the names of the victims. They will say one victim was a woman.

Neighbors say the other victim was also a female.

News Three has confirmed that one of the women was Beatrice Barber, 29.

The fact that there was a fire at the home is complicating the investigation because parts of the house - and the bodies - burned.

"At this point we're still following a lot of leads. We do not have a concrete suspect to name at this point so we still have some unanswered questions and some things that we need to put together," Diggs said.

Neighbors have theories.

"The rumor is that [someone] may have started a fire to try and cover up what happened because the fire didn't damage too much of the building,” said Floyd Cavanaugh.

The timing of the fire is making it tough to put a case together.

It happened just before Noon on Monday, and police say no one seems to have been home in the middle of the workday.

"We've not talked to anyone who has seen a whole lot out of the ordinary at this time,” Diggs said.

Floyd says what happened at the house definitely isn’t ordinary.

"There's been little or no trouble in this neighborhood around the area. I had a problem once or twice, but nothing serious," Cavanaugh said.