Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Mom Torched House With 3 Daughters Inside: Police

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Grand Rapids Police say Roconda Singleton doused her home in lighter fluid last Saturday morning and set it on fire with her three daughters inside. Singleton's oldest daughter, Shamiya Stewart, later died. Shamiya's younger sisters, ages 10 and 7, escaped. Body camera footage showed officers encountering Singleton when they arrived as firefighters fought the flames. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the disturbing case in this epsiode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/crimefix to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Ron Wallace https://www.instagram.com/rwallacenfd?igsh=a2VnYTdhdmhtOTJoCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Are there any kids still in the house? My daughter was in there, yes. That's Rakonda Singleton. She's outside of her home that's burning. Now she's in jail, accused of setting that fire with her three daughters inside, killing one of them. This is a shockingly cruel,

unimaginable crime committed by a mom against her three kids. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. This is one of those cases that is really, really, really hard to wrap your head around. It's absolutely shocking. A mother named Rakonda Singleton is accused of setting a fire at her own home with her three daughters inside. The oldest daughter was killed in that fire. Shamaya Stewart was just 12 years old. She suffered severe burns after police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said her mother set their home on fire. Shamaya was sleeping when the fire started, and she sadly passed away. burns after police in Grand Rapids, Michigan said her mother set their home on fire. Shamaya was sleeping when the fire started and she sadly passed away. Fortunately,

Shamaya's younger sisters made it out safely when her 10-year-old sister grabbed their seven-year-old sister and get this, they jumped out of a window. But police say Singleton may have tried to keep those children from escaping the home. Preliminary investigation points to that, that she was attempting to keep them inside, yes. It was just after 7.20 a.m. on Saturday, January 25th, when a witness called the Grand Rapids Fire Department and said the house was on fire. The GRFD determined the fire was deliberately set. 46-year-old Rakonda Singleton faces three counts of second-degree child abuse and first-degree arson and more charges could be coming. Grand Rapids PD released the body-worn camera footage from the scene where 42 firefighters fought the flames. The footage begins with an officer approaching Singleton outside of the house. Are there any kids still in the house?

My daughter was in there, yes. Is she still in there? Where is she? Second floor, what corner? Where's your bedroom? Which corner? Shane, there might be still one kid inside on the second floor. The flames are absolutely raging and the firefighters are working to knock down the flames. Stay here for me.

Kid who might still be inside is named. Upstairs. stairs. Just one kid in there. Do we have an ambulance on standby? That's going to be wet and cold. Is there a police unit who's blocking cell phone Eastern? In that case, 1818, can you block cell phone Eastern at, let's say, Washington? Hold on a second. Four search teams went into that house searching for 12-year-old Shamaya. The crew found her in an upstairs bedroom and carried her out of the window. I want to take a break from this just incredibly devastating story to tell you about one of our sponsors. It's Upside. It's a free app that will get you cash back on things like gas,

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To find out how much you could earn, click the link in the description to download Upside or scan the QR code that's on your screen and use our promo code CRIMEFIX to get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's promo code CRIMEFIX to get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's promo code CRIMEFIX for extra cash back. Instantly, those firefighters work to save Shamaya's life before taking her to the hospital. And you see those flames that are coming out, you know, five, 10 feet, just flames extending from the house. And knowing that that

little girl was upstairs in that bedroom the entire time that those videos were taking place is just unimaginable is the only way I can describe it. Watching that in retrospect and knowing that she's up there is devastating to see. The Grand Rapids police chief revealed startling details. He said Singleton removed the home's smoke detectors before dousing the house with lighter fluid and setting that fire. To put it lightly, that's saying something. This is a shockingly cruel, unimaginable crime committed by a mom against her three kids. meticulously took all seven of her smoke detectors and put them in a bag and removed them from the house before she poured lighter fluid all over the house and lit it on fire in an attempt to kill her three children. According to police, Singleton poured lighter fluid throughout the

first and second floors of the home, even soaking the couch. I mentioned the police chief said Rakonda Singleton went through the home and took down all of the smoke detectors. soaking the couch. I mentioned the police chief said Riconda Singleton went through the home and took down all of the smoke detectors. Well, guess what? The officers found those after they smoke detectors in the backyard. It's unbelievable. It makes you wonder why someone would do such a thing. I cannot fathom any motive at all. I know Megan just was asking questions about mental health. That's the

first thing I go to, that there's mental health issues. I think that's something that will probably play out throughout the criminal justice process. But there's nothing. I mean, this is a mom who tried to murder her three beautiful little daughters. I have no idea. Shamaya suffered burns on up to 30 percent of her body, and she eventually died at a children's hospital later that evening. According to the young girl's family, Shamaya was a fighter from the day she was born. She was born weighing less than two pounds and spent the first four months of her life in the NICU. That didn't stop her, though, from growing into a beautiful young girl. Funeral services for Shamaya will take place on February 8th. The youngest daughters, age 10 and 7,

have since been released from the hospital. WWMTTV reports that court documents quote Singleton as telling police, I am not going to sit here and play like I am the victim. And she claimed she set the fire so she could die with her three daughters so they could all be free. So I want to bring in Ron Wallace. He is a retired fire chief and a career police officer. Ron, I really want to get your thoughts on this body camera footage. When I first saw it, I was shocked at how huge these flames were. I mean, they are just like bursting from the

windows in this house. This was a fierce, ferocious, I don't even know if ferocious is the right word, but this was a huge, huge fire. Oh, you're right. My first thoughts as far as with that much fire, it was obviously, there's a high likelihood that it was an incendiary set fire, intentionally set. I would begin to guess or surmise that a flammable liquid may have been used, which we found out later on that that was the case. And just so your viewers know, a flammable liquid basically means that that liquid is putting out a vapor at room temperature that is ready to be ignited. So that gasoline, gasoline is a flammable liquid is extremely dangerous. I've even been told that gasoline, a gallon of gasoline is like two sticks of dynamite. That much energy is latent in that. So in this scenario, in this case, you know, she used lighter fluid

as a flammable liquid. She ignites it. And if she, you know, depending on how much she poured out. But another thing too is modern day furnitures and that kind of thing with the proliferate, with plastics, modern day fires will burn much faster and much hotter than back in the days when you had mostly cotton and wood. So that would also attribute to that. Yeah. So the plastic would be fuel essentially something like, you know, I'm just going to throw this out there, polypropylene or, you also a statement made, apparently, that Reconda Singleton had doused the couch in lighter fluid. We don't know what was in the couch cushions. That stuff can go up like that. So all of these things, more so than something like wood, as you just mentioned, can be highly flammable and add fuel to the fire. So if you were responding to this fire

and you pull up in your fire truck, in your tanker, what have you, and you see a fire like this, you're thinking to yourself immediately, somebody set this and this was likely, a fire like this, you're thinking to yourself, immediately, somebody set this and this, this was likely, you know, an accelerant. My immediate concerns right away would be life safety. My immediate concerns would be is there still somebody in that

house? And one of the one of the unwritten rules in the fire services, even though they tell you there's something that everybody's out, you don't you don't take that for granted. You don't take that as being the Bible because oftentimes people may think that everybody's out. But there's also times when people will go back in to try to retrieve another family member or try to retrieve a pet or something of value. And now they've become a victim. So immediately, my first thought when I pull up on that is, what are my life hazards? Do we still have somebody inside the house? Depending on the proximity of that house that's burning to the other two houses on either

side, you start to worry about the exposures and how much heat are they taking in? Or is there people in those houses that we need to vacate from the house, take out of the house? So that's my first thought. The thought of the arson typically doesn't come until after you've located victims or completed your search, knocked down your fire and got it under control. That's when you start to think, you know, or you start to realize what started this, you know, what's, because that's one of the things about a fire is, or an arsonist, you have to look at the motive, you know, why did somebody do this? Was there a mental illness associated with it? Was there a financial factor associated with it, like a life insurance policy or a homeowner's policy.

They're getting ready to lose the home to foreclosure. And we've seen hero syndrome, where somebody will set a fire and attempt to put it out, but it's too big. And it's because they want to be the heroes that put the fire out so there's all these different you know different things of relationship breakups that's another big one um you know there's a motive there's a motive behind it so you know you you go to the on the scene you observe you know you walk the scene you walk around it you determine you know as best you can how, where to enter and how to extinguish the fire. But you also have a crew going in to conduct a search. And now that being said,

if you've got a house that's completely fully engulfed, you're not going to send somebody inside because you're not going to be saving anything, you know, and even, you know, a pet or a person's not, you know, they can't sustain inside of a building like that. But that house there, there would have been people going to the second floor. And I think I've seen that in the video, you know, because that's a 12 year old daughter, Shamaya was still in the house sleeping. It's just heartbreaking. And she sadly passed away. The 10-year-old and 7-year-old were able to get out of the house. You know, the mother, Riconda Singleton, is accused of setting this fire. According to some court documents that have been filed in the case, she admitted to doing it.

She said that she wanted to die with her daughters in order to be free. However, when they arrive, there she is outside of the house. I mean, 12-year-old daughter died. I mean, this is horrific. And so they're saying, the police are saying she confessed to the crime. And so that's just what is so heartbreaking to me. And so she, according to the police, douses the whole house, goes over the first and second floor with lighter fluid, which is obviously highly flammable. That's why it's called lighter fluid. And then sets this fire. And then I don't know if she thought better of it or I don't know what happened.

And then she leaves the house. I mean, she she leaves the house and then a witness calls 911. I mean, it doesn't sound like she did anything to try to save her children. I mean, that's very concerning. I mean, in hearing that side of it, as an arson investigator, I would definitely be looking at, you know, maybe mental illness issues. You know, when we go in to investigate a fire like that, you know, once the fire is knocked down, we go in and we determine the point of origin or area of origin.

And a fire like that, based on what we know is her pouring the stuff around the house, there's going to be multiple, obviously. So you're going to take samples from those areas. You're going to send those off to a lab and the lab will tell you what it was that was used. Now there's another thing you have to do also is you take what they call a control sample. And that's where you're taking that from a different part of the occupancy to test that as well. And the reason i say that is because remember we were talking before about how you know furniture and modern plastics and stuff will increase the rate of burning and so what you want to you know if you if you get a reading on

something and it shows a high uh level of you know a plastic or something like that. And you, um, you, you take another sample that wasn't involved or didn't have the accelerate used and you can compare and show that the two are different. You know, this one over here contained lighter fluid. This one over here did not that because of that, because you can't, you know, they can't come out and say that, oh, well, yeah, there's, there's chemicals in there. So it's going to break it down. Well, that's why you take another control sample to show that, wait a minute, no, it's not the same. This one contained an accelerant, whereas this was taken from the same couch or whatever. Does that make sense? Yes.

It seems to me, though, to be just a miracle that these other children made it out of the house. I mean, it's so sad to me that the 12-year-old passed away. Now the mother, Riconda Singleton, she's facing the possibility of life in prison if she's convicted of the arson charge, and they say she confessed to this, obviously, she'll plead not guilty. That's how things work. But you're talking about mental health concerns. I mean, just the statement that she made that she wanted to die with her daughters so they could all be free, it does kind of raise that issue. You know, I kind of put your police officer hat on right now. It does kind of raise that concern that maybe there was a mental illness thing going on there oh absolutely um you know you you as an artist investigator you're going to look at all the different angles all the different possible motives and rule them out you know i mean like again did she did she recently purchased life insurance policy on on the children Did she recently increase life or property

insurance on her home? Was she in the process of losing her home through foreclosure? I mean, you look at all these different things and you investigate all those different things so that you can narrow it down to, you know, one or maybe a second mode of why it was done. And certainly my thought on this as a police officer and as a firefighter or fire investigator would be that maybe there was some mental illness involved in this. It's not an excuse by any stretch, but it's just not normal that someone would set their house on fire and leave their children inside. Well, Ron Wallace, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. We'll keep an eye on it and see where the case goes.

Okay. Thank you. And again, Rakonda Singleton is behind bars facing serious charges and more charges could be filed. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.