Backfire

One began with a prolonged scream. Another with someone coughing and gasping between words. Pleas for help were interrupted by shouted warnings and the crackling of flames in the background.

And then came a single, harrowing cry.

We can't get out!

The wind had kicked up, and flames were devouring the wooden breezeways and outside staircases of Campus Walk, sealing off escape. Embers fell like fiery rain. People jumped from balconies and windows.

Near dawn, searchers digging by hand found ashes in a shape barely human, buried in a four-foot mountain of debris in the back breezeway. Over the next three hours, three more bodies were uncovered.

Trapped

The complex was still smoldering when Bob Harris arrived around 11 a.m. He realized that authorities wouldn't have summoned him if his 20-year-old daughter were okay. News of the deadly fire was dominating local TV and radio by then. Beth was a responsible girl who kept in close touch with her divorced parents. A music major, she had spent Valentine's Day delivering singing telegrams. She would have called to let them know she was all right.

Now Harris was directed to the fire department's command post. Assistant Fire Battalion Chief Dave Douglas met him there. Four victims had been found but not identified. The university had confirmed that Beth had never made it to class.

Harris walked back to the Campus Walk parking lot, weaving past the emergency vehicles, past the news crews and onlookers, past cars twisted and melted by the fierce heat. He came upon a 1994 red Ford Taurus. Beth's.

It was locked. He longed to sit inside, to be where Beth had been. He began pounding on the car, pounding and pounding, until a firefighter came and held him while he sobbed.

Back at the trailer, Douglas was meeting with another family.

Beth shared her apartment with nursing student Rachel Llewellyn, 21, and her sister Donna, 24, who worked in the financial aid office of another nearby college. Nobody had seen them.

"We know four bodies have been found," he told Carolyn and James Llewellyn. "There are three people we can't account for, and two are likely your daughters."