Blaze at Baby Sema’j’s Death House Now Focus of Arson Probe

JOLIET, IL — An arson investigator will probe the raging fire that consumed the Preston Heights home where 1-year-old baby Sema’j Lyric-Ma’Love Crosby was found dead under a couch.

The East Joliet Fire Department initially decided against calling in an arson investigator, according to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, but officials reversed course hours later.

“The Will County Sheriff's Office has been working with the East Joliet F.D. and the Will County State’s Attorney's Office and it has been decided that an arson investigator from the state Fire Marshal's Office will conduct an investigation to attempt to determine the cause and origin of the fire,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement released Saturday.

The East Joliet Fire Department responded to the Saturday morning fire, which apparently started in a bedroom, but decided to let the house burn to ground. The Will County Land Use Department had already declared the Louis Road house unfit for habitation and no one was living in it.

Deputy Chief Rick Ackerson of the Will County Sheriff’s Department called conditions at the house “deplorable.”

Baby Sema’j was buried the day before the suspicious fire. During her eulogy at Prayer Tower Ministries Church of God in Christ, the Rev. Warren C. Dorris Jr. laid the blame for Sema’j’s death at the feet of the Department of Children and Family Services.

“In my opinion, DCFS failed this family,” Dorris said.

Sema’j’s body was found beneath a couch in the home where she lived with her mother, siblings and a fluctuating number of “squatters,” police said. She had been missing for a day and a half, during which time a massive air, water and ground search effort was carried out.

Sema’j was last seen alive about 4 p.m. April 25 in her front yard, where she was playing with six to eight other children, according to police. Independent, credible witnesses reportedly told of seeing Sema’j walking away from her home.

Sema’j’s mother, Sheri Gordon, did not call the cops until two hours after her daughter disappeared, police said.

Sema’j’s body bore no signs of trauma. Her cause of death will not be announced until the results of toxicological tests are returned.

No one has been charged in connection with Sema’j’s disappearance or death, and the police have not publicly identified any suspects.