Community Corner

Fire Embers Believed To Have Caused Shippan Ave. Tragedy

Lily Badger and her twin sisters Grace and Sarah Badger, who attended the Windward School in White Plains, died in a house fire early Christmas morning.

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The Daily News reports that embers of a Yule log may have caused the fire that killed three girls and their grandparents early Christmas morning in Stamford, CT.

Grandparents Lomer and Pauline Johnson of Southbury, Conn. and their granddaughters 10-year-old Lily Badger and 7-year-old twins Grace and Sarah Badger perished in the fire, according to the Huffington Post. The girls attended the lower school at the  in White Plains, at 13 Windward Ave.

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“This is just an unimaginable tragedy,” said Head of Windward School Dr. John Russell.

“Our sympathies and prayers to out to the family. We’re working through this as a school with the help of some grief counselors here. We’re preparing for the children to return on Jan. 3. Our condolences seem too inadequate in this kind of tragedy. We’re doing anything possible to support our faculty, students and families as we work through this.”

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Madonna Badger and her boyfriend, who tried to get back into the buring house, survived the inferno that destroyed the $1.725 million five-bedroom home at 2267 Shippan Ave. 

The Hartford Courant reports that Lomer Johnson, who had a job as a Saks Fifth Avenue Santa, was attempting to get into one of the girl's bedroom windows when he died.


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