Circumstances Surrounding House Fire Remain Under Investigation

The single-family residence at 3987 South Dixie Highway was the scene of a domestic dispute and a structure fire that resulted in an injured firefighter last Wednesday morning.

Derrick Nalls went to the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office on the morning of February 15, 2006, to request a welfare check on his wife, Mariah Nalls, after she threatened him with a butcher knife.

“He told us what was going on, and we told him he needed to get an EPO,” says HCSO Detective John Meadors. “Two of our units went down there to check and make sure she was okay, because he said she had taken a bunch of pills.”

Deputies arrived to find one side of the house in flames.

Central Hardin, Valley Creek, and Elizabethtown Fire Departments responded to fight the fire. Believing that Mariah Nalls might still be inside, firefighters conducted a search of the house. As they looked for a victim who wasn’t there, a portion of the floor gave way beneath one of the volunteer firefighters.

“They were in the process of doing a secondary search for the victim that was supposedly in the house at the time,” says Sgt. Tom Williams of Central Hardin Fire Department. “They had started to back out into the living room, which was where the main body of fire was when we first got there. A portion of the floor gave way and his right leg went through the floor.”

Lt. J.C. Lanford, a six-year veteran of Central Hardin Fire Department, was transported by Hardin County EMS to Hardin Memorial Hospital. He suffered a fractured tibia and was hospitalized overnight. He was released from the hospital Thursday after it was determined that surgery would not be required.

Meanwhile, a BOLO (be on the lookout) had been issued for the green 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue that Mariah Nalls had driven away from the residence. Her husband told deputies that he believed she might be heading to Indiana or to Wisconsin, where they had lived until their recent move to Kentucky. When HCSO entered Mariah Nalls’ data into the system, Meadors discovered that a law enforcement officer in Chicago had run the Intrigue’s tag earlier that afternoon, but did not initiate a traffic stop.

At 12:23 Friday morning, February 17, the house on South Dixie Highway rekindled and burned to the ground. Central Hardin and Valley Creek Fire Departments returned to battle the blaze, but the house was a total loss.

Evidence points to arson as the cause of the initial fire Wednesday morning, but Meadors says the second fire has been attributed to natural causes.

“We think it was just due to the high winds,” he says. “When I was up there it was still smoldering a little bit, and we had some really high winds that night.”

Though she briefly disappeared, Mariah Nalls has since contacted the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office herself and spoke with Detective Meadors.

“She knew the house had caught on fire, because she said [her husband] called her and told her the house had burned down,” says Meadors.

“We’re still working to get more information, to get a timeline tied together,” says Meadors.

Investigation into the series of events will continue.