Tacoma family displaced by fire, then burned by thieves--twice

TACOMA, Wash. — A Tacoma family had already been devastated by a fire, which destroyed much of their South Yakima Avenue home and most of their belongings. Then, looters broke in and took everything the family was hoping to save and salvage, which they’d spent previous days pulling from the ashes.

The fire, which investigators have ruled as electrical, started while the De los Reyes family was away, moving the kids’ grandmother into assisted living, while the father was working on a fishing vessel on the Bering Sea. Someone alerted Roxanne De Los Reyes her home was in flames, referring to photos posted on Facebook.

“I started bawling,” she said. “My daughter’s already screaming because the cats are in the house. She was crying, inconsolable.”

Roxanne and her three young daughters returned to the home the family had rented for two years to find indescribable loss. The entire house and everything in sight was ruined.

“It’s all black inside there,” De Los Reyes said. “Water dripping, ceiling falling, I heard a meow.”

The family found their three cats — all were suffering from smoke inhalation. But Roxanne’s 5-year-old daughter’s birthday presents from days ago were in ashes.

“All of her stuff was gone, the clothes in the closet are all burned, all their toys, everything.”

De Los Reyes took days to pick out electronics, video games, her children’s’ three school laptops, two TVs, two jewelry boxes, anything that might dry out and be useful. She stacked everything in the garage.

She says the next day, looters ransacked everything and removed anything of value — electronics, toys, laptops. They shattered the window of their SUV. “They broke the lock off the back door, broke the lock off another door, drilled a hole through the garage door,” she said.

The depths of cruelty were only beginning. “They came back here last night, and broke in again,” De Los Santos said. “And they must have made a fire.”

A pile of ashes showed the intruders burned a pile of something on the floor of the previously ransacked garage. Someone also took the time to defecate in a cooler the family had set aside in a save pile.

“We don’t have anything,” De Los Reyes said. “We don’t know where to go already, and on top of that you come and violate somebody’s belongings, and the last possessions they might have.”

De Los Santos and her sister Vicki King say at some point, the heartless looting inside went beyond crying out loud, and became laughable.

“They came in and stole the laundry detergent out of the house,” she said.

Now the family is starting over from complete ruin, wondering who would add suffering and insult to the injury of losing a lifetime of memories.

“Now everything we thought we could save is gone.”

Supporters have started a fundraising page in an effort to help the family start over and stay near their Tacoma neighborhood, where two of the children were scheduled to begin in-person learning at Mann Elementary School in March.

Cox Media Group