FLORA, Ind. — Sunday marks five years since a house fire in Flora that killed four sisters.
The windows and doors are boarded up, but otherwise the house on East Columbia Street sits mostly untouched after the deadly fire in the early morning of Nov. 21, 2016.
Eleven-year-old Keyana Davis, nine-year-old Keyara Phillips, seven-year-old Kerriele McDonald and five-year-old Kionnie Welch were trapped in the fire. Their mother, Gaylin Rose, and Carroll County Sheriff's Deputy Drew Yoder both tried to rescue the girls and suffered serious injuries that required hospitalization.
A lengthy investigation eventually determined the fire was arson. No one has ever been arrested.
"All the time I'm disappointed,” said Rose during a FaceTime interview Friday. “It's just taking so long to figure out what happened, how it happened.”
Rose left Flora and moved to California to be with family shortly after the fire. She felt like she had to get away from the place that took away all of her children.
"There was no type of beef, no retaliation against me and my family,” said Rose. “No one disliked us like that. We didn't have no beef. Everyone loved us just as well as we loved them. So once again, I'm lost. To be honest, I feel like it was more racial."
Rose is Black and so were her four daughters.
Joyce Simpson sat on a memorial bench in Flora Friday afternoon. The bench includes the names of the four sisters killed in the fire, as well as the two girls, Abby Williams and Libby German, murdered in nearby Delphi in 2017. Simpson helped organize a cookbook and other fundraisers for “Flora's Four Angels” that have raised about $18,000.
Simpson drives by the house where the sisters died almost every day.
"I wish they would just tear it down and go on,” said Simpson. “Don't forget the family. They didn't deserve this. It makes me sad and all because maybe out there knows who did it. Come on people, come forward. Make it at ease for the family."
Indiana State Police said Friday they could provide no update on the case. But the investigation is still open with a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
"Whoever is out there knowing, come out and say anything,” said Rose. “Come say something. Those were my babies. Those were my children, the only kids that I have. I just want justice for my children."
Stuffed animals and other items from the memorial that grew in front of the house after the fire still sit in crates on the porch five years later.
The four sisters are not forgotten in Flora.
Family and friends will gather for a memorial service for the girls on Sunday at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis at 12:30 p.m. That’s where the sisters are laid to rest. The public is invited.