N.C. officials confirm IDs in fatal beach house fire

Survivor recalls awaking to flames, smoke

By TIM FLACH - tflach@thestate.com

The identities of seven students killed in a beach house fire were confirmed tonight by the North Carolina state medical examiner's office.

Town officials in Ocean Island Beach released the names given them:

-- Cassidy Pendley, 18
-- Lauren Mahon, 18
-- Justin Anderson, 19
-- Travis Cale, 19
-- Emily Yelton, 18
-- Allison Walden, 18
-- William Rhea, 17

All were students at USC except for Yelton, who attended Clemson University.

No further details were provided.

Some of them were childhood friends who attended high school at J.L. Mann Academy in Greenville, friends say.

Town officials said the investigation continues into the origin of the fatal fire.

Two of the six students who escaped the fire offered views today of what happened.

Fallon Sposato awoke to a blaring alarm and smoke seeping into the bedroom where 12 friends had partied a few hours earlier.

She was sure as she fled that her friends were already outside. "And then nobody else was out yet," the 19-year-old University of South Carolina sophomore told The Associated Press.

Officials have said many of the 13 at the house were members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and Delta Delta Delta sorority.

Sposato, a Delta Delta Delta member, said she and Walden, her roommate and sorority sister, joined the trip to return to USC for initiation activities later Sunday.

The students went to the resort town after classes Friday, listening to music and swimming in a canal behind the house, which was on stilts. On Saturday, the group went out to lunch and watched the University of Georgia-University of Florida game before grilling food on a patio under the house and getting ready to watch the Gamecocks take on the Tennessee Volunteers.

"We just had a good time," Sposato said. Students were drinking alcohol but she said no illegal drugs were ever present. "We were just hanging out and listening to music."

The group caroused into the early morning, hanging out on the home's back deck. Sposato said she was the first to go to bed, turning in at 4:30 a.m. just after calling her father to report she'd lost her camera.

To anyone who's written off the fire as a result of careless underage drinking and youthful irresponsibility, Sposato said that simply isn't the case.

"These are the most responsible of all of my friends," she said. "This group was a solid group, and that's why it's just so unreal that this would happen."

For now, Sposato said, all she and the five other survivors can do is tell the story of the friends they lost.

"It's just very unreal. It's going to be hard for the six of us, because we lost seven of our closest friends," she said, holding back tears. "But I guess we just have to keep going, and I think that's the hardest part."

Her comments came after another student told of leaping from a third-story window to escape the inferno as smoke filled his bedroom.

Tripp Wylie of Greenville said he heard crackling and popping after he awoke, then opened the bedroom door letting smoke in. He went to the window and saw flames coming from the front of the house and a canal underneath.

"You knew you had to jump at some point - that was the only option," he told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Wylie said he made "a very lucky jump," clearing a concrete bank around the canal.

Debbie Smith, mayor of the resort community, said investigators believe the fire was accidental and started in the rear of the house, either on or near a deck facing a canal. That side of the home appeared to be the most heavily damaged. Most of the victims were found in the home's five bedrooms.

Randy Thompson, head of Brunswick County (N.C) Emergency Management, told the Wilmington Star "indicators" there prompted them to focus the investigation on that portion of the house. He declined to go into detail.

Federal and state investigators took part in the fire investigation.

A spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives said today its agents ruled out arson.

“There is no indication .æ.æ. that this fire was deliberately set,” ATF spokesman Earl Woodham said.

Local officials hope to receive an initial report from North Carolina state investigators by Friday, Thompson said. Ocean Isle Beach officials have said they don't expect any word on a possible cause until then.

USC’s football team will honor the six students killed by wearing a memorial sticker on their helmets in the game against Arkansas Saturday.

The stickers will include the words "forever to thee" - part of USC’s alma mater song, Coach Steve Spurrier said today.

“It is a terrible tragedy anytime family has to bury one of their children,” he said. “We’ll remember these students and hopefully can recover. For the families, it’ll be something forever, unfortunately.”

It’s uncertain if the sticker will be worn beyond the game.

Gamecock players hope their play gladdens those grieving.

“I think we can probably bring some happiness to the town, to the school and just cheer everybody up,” strong safety Emanuel Cook said. “We can have a good game and do this for the people that we lost.”

"We can play an important role," linebacker Marvin Sapp said. "We're going to try to give these families some kind of diversion or some kind of support in the way that we play. It really adds another aspect to this game."

Wire services and staff reporters Clif LeBlanc and Joe Person contributed to this story.