Man dead after fire at Little Rock home

Cause of blaze, death of 57-year-old under investigation

LITTLE ROCK -- A man is dead after a Friday morning fire ravaged his single-story home.

Firefighters received a call to 4721 W. 24th St. at 8:57 a.m. Friday, Little Rock Fire Department spokesman Capt. Edwin Woolf said.

"When we got there, the house was on fire, with fire coming out of two different ... windows -- one on the front and one on the side," Woolf said. "The fire was out fairly quickly. It's a really small house."

Firefighters entered the house and found Delbert Griffith unresponsive, according to police. The 57-year-old resident died at the scene.

The cause of the fire and Griffith's cause of death are under investigation, Woolf said.

"Homicide investigators responded to the scene and advised the death did not appear suspicious," Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Sidney Allen said in an email.

According to a police report, officers arrived at the fire and talked to Dominique Stubblefield, a 30-year-old niece of Griffith.

Stubblefield told officers she arrived at the house to take Griffith to the store, but when she knocked on the front door, her uncle replied he wasn't ready. Stubblefield waited about 30 minutes and then told her uncle she was going to the store and would be right back.

When Stubblefield returned, "the house was engulfed with flames," police reported.

On Friday afternoon, family members and neighbors gathered outside of the pale yellow house, some peering into the house through the front door.

Another one of Griffith's nieces, 25-year-old Kyla Winkler of Little Rock, was one of those family members.

She said she was on the phone with Stubblefield when her cousin arrived at her uncle's house.

"We were both going to meet back over here," Winkler said. "She said she had to call me back because Uncle Jabo's house was on fire."

Griffith's mother, Vellonia Griffith, 84, died May 9, Winkler said, and the family had buried her Monday in Little Rock.

Winkler said she and other family members had been visiting her uncle every day after the death of his mother. Her uncle lived alone with his two cats, including one known as "Witter," who roamed the neighborhood.

"We've been coming over here every day, checking in, talking and having barbecues and chilling," she said. "Trying to keep him with the spirit."

Her uncle worked different jobs, such as working on cars and painting houses, she said.

"He kept a job," Winkler said. "Today was just one of those days he didn't go to work.

"He was always fun -- an outgoing person. Everybody liked him. Everybody loved him. Everybody loved him."

Griffith's death is the second fire death of 2015 in Little Rock.

NW News on 05/23/2015

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