Kennedale home burns killing three

By Yamil Berard in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
In the late 1940s, Frank Bedford built a home for his budding family on rural land that belonged to his parents. He became one of the city’s first police officers after serving in the Army during World War II.

“I knew him all my life,” said brother-in-law Doug Cooper, who is in his late 80s and is another early resident of the city, which was incorporated in 1947. “They were good people, like the rest of us.”

Five generations of Bedfords lived in the frame house that Frank Bedford built for his family. But moments after midnight Friday, the three-bedroom home went up in smoke in an unexplainable fire that killed Frank Bedford’s son, Eddie, 57; Eddie Bedford’s pregnant daughter, Joy Hummel; and his 6-year-old granddaughter, Jody, family and neighbors say.

“My brother was a good guy, an all-around good guy,” said Cylinda Bedford of Burleson, Eddie Bedford’s sister. “He loved Jody. That grandbaby was his life.”

The Tarrant County medical examiner’s office has yet to identify the bodies, Kennedale Police Chief Tommy Williams said Saturday. “Right now, we’re just kind of at a standstill until the police do the job and figure out what’s going on and what happened,” Cylinda Bedford said Saturday.

Neighbors said they saw nothing and were asleep when the fire occurred. But arson specialists from the Kennedale Police Department are investigating the source of the blaze, Williams said.

“We’re sending all the evidence gathered off to the crime lab, and the detectives are putting the paperwork together,” Williams said. “You always suspect something unless you prove otherwise.” More details won’t be available until midweek, he said.

Kennedale dispatchers received a 911 call at 12:19 a.m. Friday that a structure on Little School Road across from Life Fellowship Church was engulfed in flames.

By the time fire officials arrived, the structure was “heavily involved in fire,” a police report says. A total of 15 firefighters and fire officers from the Kennedale, Forest Hill and Mansfield fire departments fought the blaze, reports say..

The home did not have smoke detectors, Kennedale Fire Chief Mike McMurray said. Some reports said the home had open-flame gas heaters. During the primary search, firefighters found one adult male dead in a bedroom, police reports showed. One adult female and one female child were found during a secondary search, reports showed. Cylinda Bedford said her niece, Joy, was 3? 1/2 months pregnant.

Cylinda Bedford said Joy Hummel’s husband, Johnny, who also lived in the home, arrived there about 12:40 a.m. Friday.

“We’re not sure how he got word,” Cylinda Bedford said. Johnny Hummel was to have been at work until 5 a.m., she said. He has since disappeared, and the family is worried.

“Johnny, wherever he is, he’s grieving,” she said. “He needs to contact us.”

On Saturday morning, the house was boarded up, showing heavily charred front and side panels. A swing set, slide and lawn chairs had been set up in the back yard.

The Turners, whose property adjoins the Bedfords’ property, said they did not hear the blaze. Pat Turner, a former Kennedale city councilman, said he saw the structure at 8:30 a.m. Friday when he left his house. He said he didn’t notice any smoke.

“My only impression was it was something out of the ordinary because the yellow tape was around the entire property of the house,” he said. “I didn’t know at the time that there had been fatalities.”

Turner, 71, a neighbor of the Bedfords for 67 years, said his relatives knew Frank Bedford and his family. One of Turner’s sons attended Kennedale schools with Cylinda Bedford.

Turner said Frank Bedford and his wife, Wilma, are deceased.

“We were surprised when we heard about it,” he said. “They were old-time folks, and just like most folks in the country; they were good folks.”

“It’s just terrible,” said Wilda Turner, Pat Turner’s wife.

Pat Turner said the fire is the fourth similar blaze in Kennedale since August. But Friday’s was the first to claim lives, he said.

“It’s kind of freaky,” he said.

The Turner family’s rental home went up in flames Aug. 16. An electrical problem caused the fire, Turner said. Three others occurred later and were unusual, he said. Most of the blazes occurred in homes 50 or more years old, he said.