OLD TOWN, Maine — While the family of a woman and her two children who died last week in a house fire prepares for a remembrance service on Saturday, detectives continue to investigate the deaths.
Maiysha Somers-Jones, 34, and her children Isis Doe, 10, and Zebulon Doe, 8, died Nov. 7 at their home at 15 Bradbury St. The home did not have working smoke detectors, fire officials have said.
“The fire marshal and state police continue to investigate,” Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said Tuesday.
Messages left for the lead detective at the fire marshal’s office regarding the cause of the blaze were not returned on Tuesday.
“It was a really old, crappy house,” Hannah Somers-Jones said Tuesday of the home her sister rented in Old Town. “There wasn’t a single fire detector in the whole house.”
She described Maiysha Somers-Jones as a “brilliant” artist who dabbled in fiber art, bag making, painting and other artistic outlets.
“She was a creative zealot and a force to be reckoned with,” Hannah Somers-Jones said, adding that she also was missing her niece and nephew.
Neighbors spotted the fire just after 10 p.m. Nov. 7 at the white two-story Cape-style house, and firefighters found Maiysha Somers-Jones in a first-floor bedroom and her two children in an upstairs bedroom. Crews unsuccessfully attempted resuscitation of the children, according to a press release from the fire marshal.
The entire family is devastated by the deaths, Hannah Somers-Jones said.
“I keep going through stages of anger or sadness,” she said. “Today, I’m angry.”
Maiysha Somers-Jones’ common law husband, who is the father of the children, was not at home at the time of the fire, McCausland said in a press release issued last week. He could not answer questions on Tuesday about Jeremy Doe’s whereabouts when the fire broke out.
“I don’t have any information on him,” McCausland said.
Hannah Somers-Jones said her sister’s husband, like everyone else in the family, is struggling emotionally to handle the loss. She planned to visit him on Tuesday.
“They were a very happy family,” she said of Maiysha Somers-Jones’ family. “And they were so loved.”
The state medical examiner’s office also is withholding the cause and manner of the three deaths and is not saying why, according to spokesman Mark Belserene.
“I can’t at this time release the reason for this case information being withheld,” Belserene said in a Tuesday email. “I will get back to you as soon as possible. I am waiting for a response from the [attorney general’s] office that may help.”
Tim Feeley, spokesman for the Maine attorney general, said in a Tuesday afternoon email that the attorney general is looking into the matter.
“It is not uncommon for the attorney general’s office to review fire deaths,” Feeley said.
While the investigation continues, friends and family from all over the country are making plans to attend the remembrance service scheduled for noon Saturday at Otter Creek Cemetery.
“The kids are going to be in the same coffin, which will be made with white board so the kids can draw on it,” Hannah Somers-Jones said. “I thought the kids would like that.”
She said she and her boyfriend will play music at the funeral, including “one song we wrote last night” about Maiysha Somers-Jones and her children.
Hannah Somers-Jones also has set up a GoFundMe account to help pay for the funerals and is planning a benefit concert, tentatively scheduled for Dec. 11, at the Union Street Brick Church in Bangor.
“Already, we’re accepting donations and silent auctions items,” she said, saying her sister threw her a similar benefit after she was in a car crash last year.
Friend Jessie Driscoll of Woodstock, New York, described Maiysha Somers-Jones as a brilliant fiber artist and a good social media friend who she never got to meet in person.
“She cared a great deal about quality, and she perfected her methods of dyeing and painting fiber,” Driscoll said. “She was tireless. She learned about photography so she could capture these colors and share them with people. Her colors were really second to none.”
Fiber art, the use of thread, yarn or rope to create wall hangings, sculpture and clothing, among other things, is an exacting form of craftsmanship.
Somers-Jones “inspired hundreds or thousands of artists in the fiber arts community” through active membership in websites and her own work, Driscoll said.
Driscoll said she once told Somers-Jones she was a “color sorceress,” and Somers-Jones’ liked the description enough to use it in the biography of her Twitter account.
Somers-Jones gave up fiber art, at least outwardly, when her family opened a restaurant in Bar Harbor in 2015 that has since closed, Driscoll said.
“I want so desperately to make something amazing happen for these people I love so dearly,” Hannah Somers-Jones said.
She said she also is waiting for the fire marshal to determine the cause of the blaze that took her sister’s life and the lives of her niece and nephew.
“I still want to know,” she said.
She believes if a smoke detector had been installed in the Old Town home, her loved ones may have had a chance to escape.
“It’s crazy how preventable this is,” she said.