Silliman's Papers

Family killed in motel fire remembered
‘I’ve never had to stand in front of this number of coffins before’
By Daniel Silliman
Clayton News Daily, June 16, 2007


The five were dressed for a wedding.

Shikita Jones, 32, wore a long, white, wedding dress and a wreath of white flowers on her head. Fred Lee Colston Jr., 26, was dressed in the white tuxedo of a groom. Melvin Jones, 42, and Devon Butler, 11, were wearing tuxedos, and 10-year-old Desha Butler was dressed as a bridesmaid.

The five were dressed for a wedding that never happened. They lay in five white coffins.

The coffins were open at the front of the sanctuary, Friday, end-to-end, covered by white gauze and white flowers. Shikita Jones and Colston were planning to get married in July and planning to move out of the Budget Inn the day the 709 King Road motel burned and the smoke killed them.

Family, friends and officials filed to the front of Divine Faith Ministries International, in Jonesboro, to view the bodies of the family. Some wept openly. Others stared at the bodies, one after another, their faces blank. Women, wearing black dresses, stood at either end of the line of coffins holding out boxes of tissues.

Clayton County Fire Chief Alex Cohilas paused, in front of each coffin, and crossed himself. He paused for a moment longer, in front of the dead children, placing two fingers on the edge of each cold white casket.

Officials said Wednesday that they believe the fire was caused by arson. On Friday, during the funeral for the five killed in the suspicious fire, family and friends remembered the lives of the deceased, and expressed feelings of loss, grief and hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“They were a family,” said Juanita Jones, a cousin to Shikita. “Shikita loved Fred, Fred loved Shikita and they both loved these kids ... I pray for them. I pray for the person that done this. I don’t know what they should do [to the arsonist], I really don’t, but as long as we are all in God’s hands, it’s all right.”

The family filed into the sanctuary, following the Reverend Otis White, who recited Psalms into a cordless microphone. “I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel; my reins also instruct me in the night seasons,” White read. “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.”

Fred Colston’s uncle said his heart was heavy and said he understood grief in a new way. He sang a song about getting ready to go home, in another country, up the ladder, into heaven. “I got a home -- hallelujah! -- over the mountain,” he sang.

White, the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church, pointed a hand at the five and said he had never had to stand in front of this number of coffins.

“I’m not going to say God did this,” White said. “I told you before it was the enemy. You can be angry, you can feel frustrated, you can point your finger at the owners of that hotel, you can cast your words at the community, but let me tell you, an enemy has done this.”

To shouts of “amen,” “un huh,” “yes” and “hallelujah,” White preached on the need to take this time to re-examine life, to commit to Jesus and to trust God. “In times like these, it’s time to trust God’s will,” he said.

“Why didn’t God protect them from the fire, like the three Hebrew children we read about? Why? Have you been asking why? I’m just telling you to trust in God.”

He urged those in attendance to make Jesus their Lord and Savior, if they wanted to see the deceased again in heaven.

The white coffins were wheeled outside the Tara Boulevard church, and loaded into five black hearses. The hearses were waiting, open, backed up to the front of the church. Six black limousines were waiting to take the family.

The two Joneses and the two Butlers will be buried in Chicago, where the family is originally from. Colston will be buried in Clayton County.