Donna Briscoe had a simple question on Thursday: “Why wasn’t my brother found during the fire?”
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She said investigators told them they believe her brother was in the abandoned and boarded up house at the time of the fire.
Briscoe’s body wasn’t found until last week when a man dialed 911 and told a dispatcher he had stumbled across something while looking for his dog that had wandered into the burned house.
“I went to the basement and it’s a dead body,” the caller, John Metcalf, said to dispatchers.
The Montgomery County Coroner confirmed the body found last week was Briscoe’s.
Eva-Joy Humphreys, who said she was James Briscoe’s longtime girlfriend, said, “I don’t understand why the fire department didn’t find his body during the fire on the 23rd. How did the fire department overlook that?”
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Humphreys said family members were told “the fire had melted the stairway” and investigators did not go into the basement.
Dayton fire and city officials did not respond to repeated calls for comment Thursday by this news organization.
A Dayton Police Department spokeswoman said the investigation was in the hands of the fire department, and police are waiting for a final coroner’s report, including a toxicology screening.
Donna Briscoe wondered if her brother had been placed in the basement after someone had harmed him and then set a fire.
He had a record that included drug offenses and robbery, and he had served time in prison after being convicted of aggravated assault in 2011.
Police and Dayton Fire Department EMS are no strangers to drug and criminal activity at the South Irwin Street house located between East Third Street and Burkhardt Avenue. Police have been called to the address eight times since 2011 for alleged crimes ranging from domestic violence, assault, theft and drug possession.
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In 2016, police made a prostitution and obstructing justice arrest as well as found narcotics at the address in what police described in a report as a “high drug area.”
One woman at the scene told a police officer, without prompting, “They have a lot of drugs in there,” she said, adding that she would be there if she had money.
Police found what appeared to be crack and two continuously ringing cell phones along with nearly $1,400 in cash and a scale. Also found was cocaine, heroin and prescription pills.
Last year, a resident of the house overdosed and another person arrested. Police noted in a report that the home had neither electricity nor running water.
Humphreys said James Briscoe, known as “Jimmy,” did have an addiction to opioids but was also a very giving person.
“He had a big heart,” Humphreys said. “He would give his last dime to someone who would ask him.”
The family set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds for a funeral.
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