HOUSTON — A fire in a garage apartment claimed the life of a 63-year-old man Saturday. Family members identified him as 63-year-old Wayne West.
The fire happened in the 6500 block of Trush Drive, near Mykawa Rd. and Belfort in southeast Houston.
Family members say a space heater might be to blame for this tragedy. They say West had just gotten the heater from a friend last week.
“I am defiantly going to miss my daddy,” said West’s daughter, Lashavia West.
Lashavia West still can’t believe that her 63-year-old father is gone.
“I just talk to him yesterday. The last thing I told him was, 'I love you’ when we were getting off the phone,” she said.
According to investigators, the fire broke out at around 1 p.m. in Wayne West’s garage apartment
“Once the fire was extinguished, they located a deceased individual inside the structure,” said Sgt. Blake Robers with the Houston Police Department’s homicide division.
West says neighbors called her family and she rushed to the scene, but it was too late.
“By the time I arrived, that is when they acknowledge someone was in there,” she said.
She fears a space heater might have been to blame.
“A person gave him a space heater and my cousin, she saw a person give him a space heater,” she said. “A possibility that may have triggered the fire.”
And now West hopes her dad isn’t remembered for this tragic fire, but instead as the kind neighborhood mechanic and entertainer he was.
“I was little just watching him entertain and do the Michael Jackson kick. That is the memory that just always hits. His cowboy hats, loved to dance and loved music; I think that is where I got it from,” said West.
Wayne would’ve been 64 next month.
“He helped everybody. He loved God,” his daughter told us.
Wayne West leaves behind three kids and three grandkids. Houston police and HFD arson investigators were at the scene for hours. They could not tell us what exactly caused the fire, which is still under investigation. They say the Medical Examiners office will determine the cause of death.
