Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Randy Garrison Arrested

See prior analysis of father's statement HERE

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —The father of two children killed in a trailer fire in Orrick in December was arrested.
The Missouri Highway Patrol said Randy M. Garrison, 32, of Orrick, was taken into custody on two charges of first-degree abandonment of a child.
Garrison's children -- Roger Garrison, 3, and Ashton Garrison, 1, were found dead in the trailer on Dec. 10.
Hours after the fire, he told KMBC 9 News that he went to bed and woke up hearing the boys screaming. He said he saw the house on fire and tried to break into the boys' room from an outside wall, but couldn't.
According to court documents, first responders noticed differences in Randy Garrison's accounts of what happened on the night of the fire. Police said he told them he was injured after falling into the fire, but medics said he didn't have injuries consistent with that account.
Police said he also told them he initially overstated the size of the fire. They said that when he was asked why he wasn't able to get to the boys, he told them that he panicked and "didn't think."
Garrison also blamed the boys' mother at one point, saying she had tied a bungee cord over the door to their bedroom.
"The bedroom where the kids stayed was directly across the hall from the bathroom. And I, unfortunately, had seen Tammy do it once. She stuck a cord around the door to the bathroom door when it was naptime so they couldn't get out of the room," said neighbor and longtime family friend Sarah White.
White said she questions why Garrison wasn't able to get to the boys.
"I don't understand how it could have happened, because the doors -- especially here -- it was run down. It needed a lot of work and it wasn't very strong," White said. "Anybody could have easily kicked the door down." 
Garrison was being held in the Ray County Jail on $100,000 bail.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

6 comments:

Tania Cadogan said...

I think i saw a comment in the media that he claimed he thought the mom had abducted the boys.

This struck me as odd as if he believed she had abducted them, they wouldn't have been in the house and thus he couldn't have heard them screaming.

if they were abducted and not in thhouse who duid he hear screaming and if they weren't in the house why try and break down a door or weall to get to the non existent children/

Another case of inconsistent stories from the guilty party.

Tania Cadogan said...



A Ray County man abandoned his two young sons to die in a trailer fire and then lied to authorities about his valiant efforts to save them, according to court charges filed Thursday.

Randy M. Garrison, 31, is charged with two counts of child abandonment in the deaths of 1-year-old Ashton Garrison and 3-year-old Roger Garrison. The boys died in a midday fire on Dec. 10 at 9634 Shach Creek Road.

According to authorities, Garrison said he returned home from work that morning and went to bed. He said he awoke to the sounds of his sons screaming from their bedroom and the small home engulfed in fire.

Garrison described how he fought his way through flames and smoke to try to reach his boys, but he tripped over a bungee cord and fell face-down into the fire. Garrison told investigators he had to leave the home. He said he ripped siding off the outside of the trailer and punched a hole through to try to reach his sons but was overcome by smoke.

Court documents, however, indicate Garrison changed many parts of his account over several days of questioning. Medical personnel said he did not have burns or carbon monoxide levels consistent with someone who had been in a fire as Garrison described. A firefighter also said there was no damage to the outside of the trailer consistent with someone trying to force his way inside.

According to court documents, when Garrison was confronted with his inconsistencies he said he woke up to a nightmare and thought the fire was a lot bigger than it was.

“Maybe I panicked, maybe I didn’t think, I don’t know,” Garrison allegedly told investigators.

Days after the fire, Garrison allegedly told an officer that a woman who also lived at the trailer had threatened to kill him and his sons, court documents said. He then said he thought she had abducted his sons and they were not dead.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol was asked by Ray County Sheriff Garry Bush to assist with the death investigation. The Missouri State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also assisted.

The court documents do not say how the fire started.

Garrison was being held on a $100,000 cash-only bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/03/20/4903216/ray-county-father-charged-with.html?storylink=fb

JoAnn said...

Child abandonment during a life-threatening event is the worst kind of cowardice. And that's actually the best case scenario here. It goes against everything I know about being a parent, where your instinct for self-preservation is tossed out in favoring of saving your child. Even worse would be the parent who deliberately walks away from a child in peril, and worse than that is the parent who causes the event, then walks away. So, at best, this man is an unnatural parent and a coward.

Red Ryder said...

Early on Randy Garrison made distancing comments regarding his children, embedded statements about being a bad father too ( see Peter's earlier article on the death of these kids).

Here is a chilling quote obtained from Randy made in the days after the fire, "'What would go through your mind after hearing your kids scream bloody murder and basically watching them die in front of you?' he asked KCTV5.
The statement is alive. The statement is telling me Randy listened to his kids "scream bloody murder". He watched them "die in front of him". Something is going through his mind about this and he wants to talk about it.

Regarding his statement of "maybe I panicked, maybe I didn't think, I don't know." He is allowing for us to to think otherwise, maybe he panicked, maybe he planned it?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586405/Father-left-two-toddlers-sons-die-trailer-home-fire-pretended-try-rescue-them.html

Red Ryder said...

Adding to my earlier comment, I think he was feeling guilt and leaking marbles with his "screaming bloody murder" because that is what it was and "watching them die" because his rescue attempt was not he said it was. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Here is a link to the entire probable cause statement:

I think this is just mind boggling on the part of both parents.

Heres the entire probable cause statement, for your analysis.

http://media.kshb.com/pdf/20140320OrrickFireProbableCause.pdf