THE parents of a Georgia teen who died in a house fire started by her brother on Easter Sunday are on the run, authorities say.
Authorities are now investigating the parents, identified as William and Carina McCue, for possible child abuse after finding unsanitary conditions within the home.
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Cops claim to have found a makeshift bed in a bathtub where the 10-year-old girl was found dead.
In addition, cops claim the showers and toilets in the home did not work. Investigators also learned that some of the surviving children did not know how to use toilet paper, according to a Fox affiliate.
William and Carina McCue were last seen driving a 2017 Honda Accord with a Georgia license plate number CHB7385.
Both face first-degree cruelty to children and second-degree false imprisonment charges. Anyone with information or who sees the parents is urged to call Gwinnett County detectives at 770-513-5300.
The 15-year-old boy was initially arrested and charged for intentionally setting his family’s one-story home aflame, according to Gwinnett County police.
Emergency crews arrived at the site of the burning home in Loganville around 5am on April 17.
“Once our crews arrived on scene we had heavy fire involvement throughout the entire front of the structure, it was just hidden away from a small wood line,” Lt. Justin Wilson with the Gwinnett County Fire Department told a Fox affiliate.
“When we were arriving on scene, we had reports of two people being trapped inside the home, a 10-year-old girl, and a 15-year-old boy.”
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Firefighters found the young girl, named Zoe McCue, dead in the home in a “room used as a bedroom without window access,” Wilson said.
The McCue family consisted of two adults, five children, and multiple pets
Zoe’s mother and two of the siblings had managed to escape when the fire broke out, but the patriarch William McCue was at work with another sibling when he got the news.
Two family cats were also found dead among the debris, the New York Post reported.
After searching for the teenage boy in the debris for hours, fire crews located him outside the home around 9am.
Investigators determined the fire to be arson and intentional in nature and arrested the boy, who has been charged with malice murder, felony murder, and arson.
At this time, Zoe’s death is being treated as a homicide.
Authorities confirmed that fire alarms had been installed in the home but did not go off when the blaze broke out.
Gwinnett police chaplains and organizations including the Red Cross are assisting the family with temporary needs.
No more details have been made available about the active investigation, and the boy’s name has not yet been made known.
The tragic fire is a part of an overwhelming pattern as Easter holiday weekend descended into violence across the US with a spate of deadly attacks and three mass shootings.
Around 100 people were injured in the carnage and at least 10 killed – with South Carolina hit by two major attacks.
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