Father of baby who died in arson fire offers reward of $25,000 for information
The father of a baby boy who died in an Edmonton arson fire returned to his burned-out home Thursday morning and offered $25,000 in reward money to solve the case while the mother is still clinging to life in hospital.
Cordell Brown’s five-month-old son died in hospital after fire crews pulled the baby and his mom, Angie Tang, from the second floor of the burning 1040 Armitage Cres. home around 4 a.m. Tuesday. Tang, 29, remains in hospital in critical but stable condition.
Police late Tuesday declared the fire an arson as homicide detectives and arson unit investigators continued to comb through the charred scene. A police sniffer dog was brought to work the scene again Thursday morning before an excavator moved in just after 11 a.m. to tear down parts of the leaning structure to stabilize it so investigators can do further work.
Around noon, Brown, 40, arrived and spoke with police outside the home as demolition work continued. He said he is offering a $25,000 reward to solve the case, adding that at times it “feels like” he’s being investigated.
His clothes from that night and his four vehicles were seized by forensics investigators.
“We’ve decided to offer a $25,000 reward for any information that leads to the arrest of the person responsible for the arson, for the murder of Hunter Donovan Chase Brown,” said Brown.
“The reason that we’re offering the money is because I hope that we can make this city safer, that no one else has to go through what we went through.
“Murdering a baby is one of the most callous acts that you could possibly do ... (Hunter) had done nothing in this world except be a happy, cute baby and it’s just not right.”
Eight people were in the twostorey home when the arson fire ignited. Brown and his wife — whose bedroom was upstairs — rented out several suites in the lower portion of the house.
Brown escaped the blaze along with the five tenants, including a 58-year-old man, 24-year-old Kyle Whitford, a 35-year-old woman and her two children, ages seven and five. Whitford helped the mother and her children, along with their dog, escape the fire through a basement window.
Brown said he was sleeping on the main floor because it was hot and, when he woke to flames on the deck, he tried to fight the fire with a garden hose.
“When I started spraying, the fire spread so quickly so I ran back into the house screaming fire, fire!” said Brown, adding smoke alarms in the house were going off and he thought his wife would have heard them along with his yelling.
He said homicide detectives have been interviewing him regularly. His wife remains largely sedated but when told Wednesday of Hunter’s death, she was so distraught she had to be restrained. Doctors told the family her airway and lungs are badly damaged as a result of the fire.
Brown said his mother recently died and the couple used an inheritance for fertility treatments that resulted in Hunter being born five months ago. His dad, he said, is dying of cancer.
Meanwhile, Brown has an Edmonton court date Tuesday for a charge of possession of property under $5,000. He said he did not want to comment on that.
Judith Lam Tang, Angie Tang’s sister-in-law, in a blog post sent to media outlets spoke of the family’s tragic loss and the love they shared for “precious” baby Hunter, urging the public to let the investigation unfold before jumping to conclusions.
“Please consider that every person deals with tragedy, with loss, with heartbreak, in a different way,” said Tang. “None of us are calm, well-spoken, rational people in a situation like this. Please don’t spend your time speculating about what happened, and let the police do their job.”
Fire investigators left late Thursday afternoon after the house structure was deemed safe, turning it over to an insurance company adjuster for a walk-through.
The baby’s death is the 34th homicide of the year, although police do not count an officer-involved fatal shooting of a civilian during a traffic stop and a fatal hit-and-run in their statistics.