As an investigation continues today, authorities are pointing to an electrical problem as the likely cause of Tuesday morning's deadly house fire that took the life of 24-year-old Katrina Krumrie, a college student who worked at a local restaurant while studying to become an elementary school teacher.

"Right now, we're leaning toward a probable electrical cause," said Cape Girardeau Fire Department battalion chief Tom Hinkebein. "It's still under investigation, but that's what we're thinking."

Firefighters responded to an emergency call at about 7:45 a.m. at 1751 Dunklin St., a house shared by four Southeast Missouri State University students: Aaron Putty and Austin Putty, whose parents owned the house, and their roommates, Justin Miller and Josh Sexton. Two of them had girlfriends staying over -- Krumrie and Heather Story.

Krumrie's boyfriend, Aaron Putty, had gone to work before the fire started, leaving Krumrie in a back, main-floor bedroom.

When the fire broke out, witnesses and police said, four of the five inside got out. The blaze and smoke prevented Krumrie from following.

"All it takes is one drag on that smoke and those gases and you're out," Hinkebein said.

Deadly smoke

County Coroner Mike Hurst estimated Krumrie's time of death as 7:48 a.m. He said though some tests remain, he believes the cause of death was smoke inhalation.

After firefighters put out the blaze, friends gathered at the scene. Some huddled around Krumrie's sobbing boyfriend, who sat in the back of an open ambulance. One collapsed in the street in tears and had to be helped to her feet by a friend.

Others cried openly or hugged each other while watching firefighters put out the remnants of the fire. Some went into the back yard so they wouldn't have to watch when the body was removed.

"She always had a smile on her face," said Christel Stoehr, who worked with Krumrie at Applebee's restaurant. "She always made everybody laugh. She was very beautiful on the outside and the inside."

Krumrie had been living with her parents in Jackson and had been dating Putty for a little more than a month. Reached at home, her parents, Wayne and Vicky Shockley, declined comment.

Josh Sexton was asleep in an upstairs bedroom when the fire started. He was awakened by the sounds of someone shouting.

"He was yelling, 'Everybody get out! Everybody get out!'" Sexton said. "I knew what it was -- I saw the smoke. I tried to go down the stairs, but there was too much smoke. That's when I went back upstairs and jumped out the window. It was awful, man."

The fire department was alerted by Cape Girardeau resident Abby Popp, who called on her cell phone after noticing the smoke coming from the house while driving her two children to school at St. Vincent's. As she turned the corner, she looked back and saw flames near the back deck of the house.

Popp pulled over and asked three men who were doing yard work at Lorimier Cemetery to help.

"I saw all the cars and said, 'I think there are people in the house,'" she remembered Tuesday afternoon. "By the time I drove back, the whole house was engulfed in flames."

Popp and one of the cemetery workers, Allen Mills, started banging on the doors and ringing the doorbell. That's when one of the men came out of the front door, groggy and falling down. Popp said smoke billowed out of the front door.

Mills went to the back of the house, threw a bucket of water on the flames while standing on the deck, and heard someone in the back room.

"She wasn't saying anything," Mills said, visibly distraught. "Just screaming."

Mills then ran to a downstairs door and helped a man and woman break the glass out of a door so they could get out. Mills mistakenly thought that the woman who came out that door, Heather Story, was the same one who was screaming from the back bedroom.

Story, who is Justin Miller's girlfriend, said she doesn't think they could have gotten out of the house without Mills' help.

"It was stuck or something," she said of the door. "We couldn't get it open. He's a hero."

Feeling failure

Mills said he didn't feel like a hero.

"When I heard that someone had died back there, it was like I failed them," said Mills, who digs graves and does outdoor work at Lorimier Cemetery. "It makes you feel terrible."

Popp had similar thoughts.

"I was thinking that I didn't do enough," she said. "We tried, but it didn't take away that one of them died."

Many of those who knew Krumrie best worked with her at Applebee's. A manager said he let several of her friends off work Tuesday and said most of the employees are a tight-knit group.

Krumrie had moved here from Delaware about a year ago and got a job as a server.

Alex Elfrink, also an Applebee's server, said he was the first one to show her around.

"She lit up the room," he said. "When she walked in, it was like, 'OK, the party's here.' She was always laughing and carrying on, joking."

Kristi Schumer worked with her too.

"She was so young," she said. "It's so sad. It's a big shock and it doesn't make any sense."

The state fire marshal's office is also investigating the fire, Hinkebein said, along with local authorities. Only one smoke detector was found -- in the basement.

"We're talking five-dollar smoke detectors," he said. "If there was one on the main floor and one in the attic, you never know. You can't look into the future and see what would happen, but we do know that smoke detectors will give you 5, 10 minutes warning. That may have been enough."

Funeral arrangements were incomplete Tuesday at McCombs Funeral Home.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137