Authorities rule as accidental Easter Sunday house fire in Millcreek that killed woman
Judy Jackson died April 20 in a fire that broke out in her one-story modular home at 4458 S. Park Lane. An investigation into the fire's cause by Pennsylvania State Police fire marshals determined the fire originated in the kitchen-living room area of the home, and its cause was ruled as accidental due to careless cooking or smoking, Millcreek Township police reported June 2.
The fire was reported on the early afternoon of April 20. Jackson was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police and the Erie County Coroner's Office.
The fire caused extensive damage to the home and spread to a neighboring residence, causing significant damage to it, investigators reported. One firefighter suffered burns in fighting the fire and was treated at the scene.
Jackson was the fifth person to die in four house fires in Millcreek Township so far this year. Careless smoking was determined to be the cause in one fire that killed two occupants, while the causes of the other two house fires were ruled as undetermined, according to police.
Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Fatal house fire on Easter Sunday ruled accidental in Erie County PA
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Travis Hunter's father released from jail in Florida
The father of Jacksonville Jaguars rookie Travis Hunter is being released from jail in Palm Beach County, Florida, after the state of Florida decided at a court hearing July 24 to withdraw its allegation that he violated his probation there. Travis Hunter Sr., 39, was arrested July 22 after he allegedly violated his probation stemming from drug and gun charges in 2023. Advertisement His probation officer said he violated the 'community control' portion of his three-year probation sentence when there was an 11-minute lapse in tracking his whereabouts on his electronic monitoring device. Under community control, he is generally required to be confined to his home under monitoring from the device, which generated a 'bracelet gone' alarm for 11 minutes on the night of June 28, according to the officer's report. 'It was beeping for I think 10 or 11 minutes, and then it was plugged back in, and they verified that he's where he was supposed to be (at his home),' Hunter's attorney Bradford Cohen said via Zoom at a court hearing July 24. 'I don't know if it was a low battery.' As a result of the alleged violation, Hunter Sr. was taken into custody and held without bond until the hearing in court before Judge Howard Coates July 24. Hunter's attorney told the judge he was prepared to admit to the probation violation as part of an agreement with the state to release Hunter and reinstate the terms of Hunter's probation. But the judge advised that such an admission would require a guilty plea that could stack up against Hunter Sr. if he violated probation again. 'Once you get the violation, it's cumulative in this court,' the judge said at the hearing, which was also viewable via Zoom. 'The second violation will be dealt with more harshly.' Advertisement The attorney for the state then agreed to just withdraw the allegation instead and reinstate the terms of his probation as if it never happened. 'Mr. Hunter, you should be released forthwith,' the judge said. 'There will be an order entered reinstating your probation.' Travis Hunter's father in the spotlight more as son soars Hunter Sr. has been in the public eye recently after his son, the Heisman Trophy winner from Colorado, mentioned him in his speech at the Heisman ceremony in December. Hunter Jr. brought attention to his legal situation then when he mentioned his father couldn't be there then or at other times previously. Advertisement Travis Hunter's father arrested in Florida after alleged probation violation Then in recent months, Hunter Sr. has made special requests in court related to his son. He asked for the court's permission to attend the NFL draft with his son in Wisconsin in April and then attend his son's wedding in Tennessee in May. The judge granted both requests. But the judge denied his request to modify his probation so he could be with his son more frequently as he begins his rookie season in Jacksonville. Why Travis Hunter's father is on probation His probation stems from traffic stop in Lantana, Florida, in November 2023, after the police said he didn't have 'any lights for the tag' on his car, according to the police report. Police identified him as a habitual traffic offender with no driver's license and subjected him to a search that allegedly found drugs and a backpack with a pistol and loaded magazine, according to court records. Advertisement Hunter Sr., a former standout athlete in Palm Beach County, ended up being charged with illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon after a prior conviction in 2018 for 'sale or possession of heroin with intent to sell.' He reached a plea deal in 2024 that included a sentence of 90 days in jail. He got released on Dec. 5, just nine days before his son's Heisman ceremony in New York. He also was sentenced to three years of probation, including one year of community control supervision. Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Father of NFL rookie Travis Hunter freed from jail in Florida

Associated Press
11 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Trump's onetime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein is well-known — and also documented in records
WASHINGTON (AP) — The revelation that Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Donald Trump that his name was in the Jeffrey Epstein files has focused fresh attention on the president's relationship with the wealthy financier and the Justice Department's announcement this month that it would not be releasing any additional documents from the case. But at least some of the information in the briefing to Trump, which The Wall Street Journal said took place in May, should not have been a surprise. The president's association with Epstein is well-established and his name was included in records that his own Justice Department released back in February as part of an effort to satisfy public interest in information from the sex-trafficking investigation. Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and the mere inclusion of someone's name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise. Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, also had many prominent friends in political and celebrity circles besides Trump. Trump's ties to Epstein It should have been no shock to Trump that his name would be found in records related to Epstein. The February document dump from the Justice Department included references to Trump in Epstein's phone book and his name was also mentioned in flight logs for Epstein's private plane. Over the years, thousands of pages of records have been released through lawsuits, Epstein's criminal dockets, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests. In January 2024, a court unsealed the final batch of a trove of documents that had been collected as evidence in a lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre. Records made public also include 2016 deposition in which an accuser recounted spending several hours with Epstein at Trump's Atlantic City casino but didn't say if she actually met Trump and did not accuse him of any wrongdoing. Trump has also said that he once thought Epstein was a 'terrific guy,' but that they later had a falling out. 'I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,' Trump said in 2019 when video footage unearthed by NBC News following Epstein's federal indictment showed the two chatting at a party at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in 1992, when the now president was newly divorced. 'He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling-out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years.' The department's decision to not release additional files from the caseThe Justice Department stunned conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and elements of Trump's base this month when it released a two-page letter saying that a so-called Epstein 'client list' that Bondi had once intimated was on her desk did not exist and that officials did not plan to release any additional documents from its investigation despite an earlier commitment to provide transparency. Whether Bondi's briefing to Trump in May influenced that decision is unclear. The Justice Department did not comment directly on her meeting with Trump but Bondi and Blanche said in a joint statement that a review of the Epstein files showed that there was nothing warranting further investigation or prosecution. 'As part of our routine briefing,' the statement said, 'we made the President aware of our findings.'


Forbes
11 minutes ago
- Forbes
The Netflix ‘Untamed' Ending Explained: Who Killed Who, And Why?
Untamed I enjoyed my recent time with Untamed, the Eric Bana-starring murder mystery set in Yellowstone National Park. We're meant to figure out who killed a girl who plummets off a mountain, which is seemingly not a suicide, and things…escalate from there. Spoilers are going to follow here for Untamed, which should be fairly obvious if you clicked on an article about the ending. So, we're going to sort through who killed who in the end, and why. Sure, the show spells it out but hey, if you're watching while on your phone or want a deeper dive, here we are. Paul Souter (the local ranger chief) killed Lucy Cook, kind of – We learn at the very, very end that Lucy was actually Souter's secret daughter, whom he gave away to foster care when she was young. She hated him for that and came back to blackmail him lest she tell his wife what happened. Finally, he tries to 'talk to her' and stop her from running after she feels threatened, so he shoots her in the leg. Who among us has not shot someone in the leg to prevent them from running with no real ill intent? But after that, she continues her escape, where she is soon attacked by coyotes, compounding her injuries. She's seemingly about to die from blood loss anyway, so she does in fact fall off the cliff voluntarily. But yes, we're going to put this on Souter, who then kills himself rather than deal with the consequences of all this. The drug gang killed the bait shop kid and the squatter – These two deaths were the hidden drug gang in the mines attempting to clean up loose ends that could lead back to their business. Even though Lucy was one of their runners, they did not kill her. However, there's a somewhat bizarre moment where a bunch of runners are found dead, seemingly from suicide (debatable). Bullseye Jill (Kyle's ex-wife) and Shane (local wildlife culler) cooperatively killed Sean Sanderson – This is a man who has been missing in the park for five years, where Kyle (Eric Bana) discovered that he abducted and killed his son Caleb, as seen on Shane's wildlife cameras. Kyle wanted him arrested and prosecuted, but Jill went to Shane and agreed they should just kill him. Shane did, though we don't know what they did with the body. It was never found. Kyle found out what happened, but all three never said anything to anyone. Naya (deputy ranger) killed Shane who was trying to kill Kyle – I mean, this one was pretty obvious. The finale of the tumultuous relationship between Kyle and Shane has the two trading gunshots in the woods once Kyle figures out he was involved with the drug trade and Lucy (though later we find out he had nothing to do with her death). I'm guessing Shane just figured Kyle was finally trying to kill him over the Sanderson assassination to bury that forever and have him stop holding it over his head for years. In the end, it's just Kyle and Jill with the Sanderson secret, though Kyle admits culpability in leading a compromised search for him five years earlier to a wrongful death investigator. I'm not exactly sure why he did that or what the end result is supposed to be after he leaves the park. In the end, Kyle didn't kill anyone except well, a good amount of drug dealers during the raid. It's complicated. The two red herrings for Lucy over the six episodes were the drug gang and Shane. I was honestly a little surprised Shane turned out to be bad at all, as that almost seemed too obvious, but I guess it wasn't in the way we thought. As for the morality of the assassination of Sanderson, I guess that's for audiences to debate. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy