A Griswold girl’s been charged in the death of two of her siblings in a house fire early Thursday in Griswold. Department of Public Safety spokesman Jim Saunders at a news conference today in Atlantic said, “Today the Cass County Attorney has filed two counts of first-degree murder against Tracy Dyess (dice), a 17-year-old girl from Griswold.”
Tracy Dyess escaped the fire, as did her mother and father, but her six-year-old brother Kaleb and 13-year-old sister Jessica Dyess died in the home. Saunders reported the charges in a news conference this afternoon in Atlantic. Saunders says Tracy Dyess is in custody at the Southwest Iowa Juvenile Detention Center in Council Bluffs, and Saunders says the investigation’s continuing.
The Griswold police chief lives across the street from the house that burned, and says the teenage girl came to his home and woke him by pounding on the door and screaming that her house was on fire. Fire crews were called to the home shortly after one in the morning Thursday but said they couldn’t enter the home as flames had already engulfed the house.