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Hi Crime Junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers. >> And I'm Britt. In 2023, a fire tore
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through a Chicago family home and killed everyone inside. A mother and her three
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kids. It seemed like an especially cruel way for them to go considering that the
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woman's husband, the kids' father, was a Chicago firefighter who was on duty that
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night fulfilling his oath to protect and serve the city. The community rallied around the surviving family who'd been
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torn apart by what seemed to be a terrible accident. But not everyone believed it wasn't accident. Within
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weeks of the fire, someone emailed me and told me to watch this case closely as it unfolded because everything might
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not be what it seems. Three years and one back-and-forth legal fight with the Chicago Police Department later, what
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I'm going to share with you might make you agree that something isn't right here.
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But I'll let you be the judge. This is the never-before-told story of the Day Stewart family house fire.
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It's shortly after 9:00 p.m. on March 7th, 2023 when a call for a multiple alarm fire comes through the radio at
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the Chicago firehouse. Firefighter Walter Sean Stewart, who everyone calls Sean, is on duty that night and he
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recognizes the address coming through over the speaker. 2554 North Rutherford Avenue. That's his house.
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Now, his station is hearing the message over dispatch even though their unit isn't the one designated to respond. But
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I mean, if you think he's not going, you're out of your mind. He rushes to the battalion chief, tells him that
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[music] he has to leave, and asks if he'll go with him. And within minutes, the two are in the chief's SUV speeding
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across Chicago's Montclare neighborhood. The chief behind the wheel and Sean staring at just this [music] smoke
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rising in the distance. The 20-minute drive probably took less if they had their emergency light on, but it must
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have still felt like an eternity. It didn't take responding firefighter engines long though. 2 minutes after the
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neighbor had called 911, firefighters were on the scene breaking through the front and back doors, and from the back
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door one team went into the home's enclosed back porch. And that's where they found the family dog Mabel in
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[music] a crate, and the smoke had already gotten to her, which meant that they were running out of time to get to
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the family that the neighbor said lived there. The back porch leads directly into the
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kitchen where the firefighters who entered through the front door were already there fighting flames. And to
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the left of the kitchen was a room with a single mattress on the floor. And they almost missed 7-year-old Ezra
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because he wasn't on the mattress. Trying to run from the flames that had already lapped up his body and given him
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second-degree burns, he had collapsed and was [music] unconscious on the floor near the foot of the staircase that led
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from that room that he was in to the [music] second floor. As one firefighter scooped him up to take him outside,
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others ascended the staircase and fanned out to check the rooms upstairs. In the first room on the right, they
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found a 2-year-old boy, Emery, unconscious in his crib. In the next bedroom, painted pink and full of
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soot-covered stuffed animals, they found 9-year-old Autumn unconscious on the floor near the window.
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By now, Sean and his chief had arrived at the chaotic scene, and he watched as fellow firefighters came out of the
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house one by one carrying all of his children and laying them on the lawn to be tended to by paramedics. But his wife
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wasn't there. Where was 36-year-old Summer? Firefighters hadn't seen her in the house, but between the flames and
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the smoke, visibility was like next to nothing, and she could still be there. I mean, if the kids were there, she had to
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be there. So, they were sent back in to do a second sweep. And that is when they
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found Summer in her first-floor bedroom unresponsive on the floor near the side of her bed. Now, when she's finally
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carried out of the house and placed on the lawn with the children, Sean runs to her and begins performing CPR until the
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EMTs are able to load her and the kids up in ambulances and take [music] them off.
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But, they will never be coming back home. One by one, like the way they came out of that house over the next few
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days, they succumbed to their injuries and [music] pass away without ever waking up, without ever being able to
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say what happened that night or what caused the fire that ravaged their home. That was a mystery left for the Chicago
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Fire Department investigators and Chicago police. And anyone who is familiar with fire investigation will
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know that they're notoriously difficult because the entire scene is one giant ball of contamination. everything on the
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first floor is covered in water and soot and debris. There is no drywall even left to speak [music] of. And even the
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support beams of the house in this fire, the ones that are exposed, those are all
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charred. But, despite everything that is ruined by the fire, there is some evidence that the fire itself provides.
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Like where it started and what could have caused it. Pretty quickly, everyone hones in on the kitchen. [music]
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Actually, one particular area on the east half where the fire patterns indicate that it originated. And a
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couple of key clues right around there are interesting to them. The stove and this outlet. On the stove, there was a
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pot on the rear left burner and a pan kind of sitting like on the right side. And even though the plastic knobs on the
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stove had melted away, [music] investigators could see that the leftover metal stem was clearly turned
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to high. And near the stove that had clearly been turned on, they also saw a melted water cooler plugged into a
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charred extension cord that ran all the way to the wall. So, they know the what and where. The fire started in this
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general area of the kitchen. What they don't know is how and why. Like, was there a spark from this outlet? Did
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something bubble over on the stove? When? Who put it there? >> Well, and I assume they tested for
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accelerants and stuff like that, too, right? Well, according to the reports that we have from the Chicago police,
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there is only one piece of evidence that they sent off in this case for testing.
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There was this metal can that was on the floor near the stove, and they had that
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tested, like seeing if there was any kind of accelerant or anything or like anything in it. But, they found out this
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had nothing to do with the cause of the fire. So, that is the scene side of things. The
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what, the where, the how, that's being handled by the Chicago Fire Department. Chicago police detectives are trying to
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collect anything that might give them the who or the why. And the first person they turn to
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is Sean. When they speak to him on March 19th, this is like nearly 2 weeks after
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the fire. He tells them that, obviously, he wasn't at the house that night because he was
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on duty at the fire station. He says he got there at like 6:00 in the morning, did some grocery shopping at two local
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stores at around 8:00 so that he could make dinner for the crew that night, and he was there until he heard the call
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come over the radio at around 9:00 p.m. And there are a couple subsequent interviews that they conduct with other
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people on duty who all confirm this. Now, I don't know how in detail they get with him about his family's lives or
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what could have contributed to the fire because all that is in this file is an investigator's quick write-up
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summarizing the conversations they had with them. But, the investigator makes note of something that I assume he
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thinks is important. Sean tells him that Summer abused alcohol and was often intoxicated. So, maybe that's the
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contributing factor here, right? I mean, at the scene near Summer on the floor where she was found in her room, they
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also found a mostly full bottle of Jack Daniel's. And then, on the side table in
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her room, there were a few soda cans, a Styrofoam cup, a red Solo cup. And if that wasn't the tip-off that she'd been
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drinking, the blood that they took from her when they first got her to the hospital was. Summer's blood alcohol
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level was one of the probably highest I've ever seen in a case, [music] .312, almost four times the legal limit. So,
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she could have very easily forgotten that she was cooking and passed out. Another thing I don't see mentioned in
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any of the reports, but we learned from talking to Summer's sister, Sarah, and Sarah's wife, Amber, is that Ezra, their
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middle child, had non-verbal autism. The reason he was sleeping downstairs instead of upstairs with the other kids
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is because he had trouble sleeping, which seems pretty common for children with autism. And he would often roam
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around downstairs, sometimes escape if no one was looking and just like beeline into traffic. It was super dangerous.
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So, Summer had converted their dining room into a bedroom for him so that they would be on the same floor, and she
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actually had these security latches installed on the doors to prevent him from getting out. So,
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what if it's this combo of everything? Summer passes out, maybe she left something on the stove, maybe not. Maybe
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Ezra is still awake and moving about the house. He goes into the kitchen. Summer's sister told us that in the
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past, Summer had issues with Ezra playing with the stove knobs. So, sometimes she took them off the stove
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completely to prevent him from messing with them. But that night, March 7th, it looks like those knobs were on. So, was
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it possible that Ezra was playing with the stove and it was just all this tragic accident? Police make no mention
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of this in their narrative reports, but I do think it's relevant. >> And do they have an idea of how that day
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and night played out for them? Like after Sean left for work, did they see anyone? Did anyone see them? Like are
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there phone records of anything? They don't pull any of that as far as I can tell. I mean, like at least from the
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reports that we have, it doesn't look like they even talked to anyone besides Sean and his coworkers. They just get
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the info from him, work to confirm his alibi, and then wait for the autopsy reports to come in. But even when they
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get those, I mean, there's not a ton that helps. Like no surprise injuries, like all four died as a result from the
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fire. There was, though, one strange detail that came back in the autopsies. Two-year-old Emery had a tiny amount of
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the drug lorazepam in his system. Now, the autopsy report says it wasn't enough to be fatal or even close to an
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overdose, but everything I read is that pediatricians would only give this drug in like a clinical setting, not at home,
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and usually it's given for things like seizures or severe anxiety episodes or in emergency situations where they need
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to sedate a young child. [music] To my knowledge, none of this applies to Emery. So, how did it get in this baby's
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system? >> Yeah. The autopsy report makes no attempt to answer that question, and
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neither do investigators, according to the documents we have. Once they know the deaths were caused by a fire, and
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that fire is ultimately concluded to be a result of either an electrical malfunction or what they call human
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action, meaning someone left that stove on, CFD decides to make their final ruling on the fire, undetermined
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suspended. And CPD classifies the deaths as non-criminal, [music] meaning they're done investigating
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unless some big new piece of evidence comes to light. >> But why not just call it an accident?
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That's basically what they're saying, because it seems like there is more investigating that could
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be done if they wanted to, right? Like, have we canvassed the neighborhood? You said they never got call records. Like
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I'm really interested in those. >> I don't think this was truly like a lack of investigative leads and we have no
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idea what happened. It seems like they have a pretty good idea of what they think happened, but I learned that it's
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not unusual for a fire investigators to be a little vague in their cause if they're not immediately sure if it's
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criminal in nature because they like to leave the door open for insurance agencies to do their own investigations.
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So, by August, this case is closed. And family and friends of the Day-Stewart family are left reeling. Local headlines
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ran with stories about Sean's unimaginable loss and the whole community really rallied around him. I
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mean, strangers and neighbors covered their soot-blackened back porch with stuffed animals [music] and flowers,
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while the Chicago Fire Department launched the Stewart Family Fund to raise money for Sean. And there was a
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massive showing for the two separate funerals held in Chicago. One for the public, which the fire department showed
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up for in droves, and another that was a Jehovah's Witness service to honor Summer's religion. There were even two
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celebrations of life back on the West Coast, where Summer had a lot of friends and where her sister lives. But, while
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people were grieving across the nation for this senseless loss, someone in the Chicago area was emailing me.
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The tip was it was vague. And the source said that they couldn't go on record. But, they told me to pay attention to
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this story as it unfolds, because though it looks like a tragic accident on the surface,
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there might be more if I dug deeper. >> That is like such an Ashley bait email. That's like the perfect way to kidnap
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you, honestly. >> It was. But, listen, at that moment, I didn't jump. I did what the tipster told
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me to do. I waited. I watched to see how this unfolded. But, it didn't. The story
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just kind of faded from the headlines in 2023 and 2024, and in the chaos of running two weekly shows, I almost
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forgot about it. Almost. Until March of last year. That's when I put our reporter Jen Amel
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on this case. Wait, like just off of this email 2 years ago, or was there like something else that kind of like
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peaked your interest, something happened? Nothing else. Just this email. >> And then this feeling that I had. So, I
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asked Jen, like, go talk to Summer's family, pull some records, tell me if there is a there there. See if you can
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find any indication that we should keep digging. I mean, maybe this is totally off base.
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And you want to know the first thing she came back to me with? It turns out Summer was planning on taking the kids
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and leaving her firefighter husband, Shawn, >> [music] >> on March 8th. But she never got the chance because the
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day before she was set to leave, a fire broke out in her home that killed them all. So, as you can imagine, we kept
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digging. And you will not believe what we found. Whenever there's a controversial trial,
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do you ever wonder, >> [music] >> did the jury get it right? I'm Brandy Churchwell, and this is
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[music] the 13th Juror podcast, where we break down real court cases and put you
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in the juror's seat. All right, jury entering courtroom. When the gavel [music] falls, the jury's
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decision may be final, but the debate is far from over. Listen to 13th Juror [music] wherever
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you get your podcasts. We, the jury, find as follows as the count. All the stories about this tragedy in
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the local papers painted Shawn as the grieving husband and father who had suffered an unexpected [music]
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and monumental loss. And yes, that might have been true, but what the stories all
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left out was the tumultuous relationship between Shawn and Summer and the years of alleged abuse that she and their kids
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suffered at his hands. And I don't know why because it's not something that Summer hid. I mean, she told most of her
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loved ones about this and we have the receipts. I'm talking pages upon pages of Summer's texts to her friends and her
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sister. Pictures of on her and the kids allegedly from Shawn and videos that Summer took that paint a concerning
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picture. The earliest video her sister shared with us comes from 2013, 10 years before her death.
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Tell me all about how I'll never, ever, ever ever hurt me again. And this time I'm
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going to video tape it. That way when he does he'll be able to watch this. That's not really fair.
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But I guess I've done enough damage to you, so I understand. I love you, baby. And
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I'm really sorry for everything I've done to you. I'm really sorry that I've done so much
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to hurt you. I love you so much. He loves me so much. You hear that? And he's sorry.
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Look at this. He's even a little grin on his face. It's cuz he likes being on video.
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You're mean. See? You're mean. >> He's smiling now. >> No, [ __ ] cuz you're making jokes.
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>> Very serious subject matter, but he's like, "I love being on video." Please. He's trying everything he can to not
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smile. See? >> [laughter] >> Shut up. You're mean. You're making me laugh. It's not fair.
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Three seconds before this video, he was laying down with tears in his eyes telling me how he's never going to hurt
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me again. And I'd heard it so many times before that I thought to myself, I wish I could
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video tape this. Oh, wait. I can. Please stop making a joke out of it. All right. I love you.
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>> [clears throat] >> I love you so much. I'm really I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything. I'm sorry
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about You know, like I I supposed to be like the nice guy. I wasn't supposed to break your heart. I
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wasn't supposed to make you feel all this pain and distrust. I'm sorry for lying to you.
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I love you and I don't want you to have to worry every time you know, when you have to think
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is he lying? Is he telling me the truth? I don't want you to think like that. I never wanted that.
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I'm sorry. I'm I love you. I love your face. I love being with you. I love you. What's that?
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What's that? What? I wanted this to be more serious. I love you. Why are you smiling over
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I'm all smiley face. >> Cuz that was the most insincere thing that I've ever seen. And every time
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I feel like I'm believing you all over again, I'm going to watch this video. I don't know if she ever showed him that
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video again, >> [music] >> or what they each thought looking back on it. But the cycle of abuse is
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textbook. Violence, apology, violence again. And the kids don't seem to have been spared. I mean, here is one video
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that Summer took of their daughter Autumn. It was filmed on September 14th, 2021, when Autumn was only seven. Tell
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me what happened, what you told me earlier, okay? That you were sitting on the bed
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and Tell me what happened, okay? First, papa uh So, he was talking to you and I was on the
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phone, right? He [snorts] was talking to you on the phone and uh I started making some loud sounds like I
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couldn't hear it and then he and then I standing I sitting on I then and then I made some louder sounds and then I sat
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down and then he he took my neck and pushed it down onto the bed and it >> And you fell
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back onto the bed? And it and I told papa that it hurted. And now my neck is sore and weak.
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After that incident, 3 months later in December 2021, Summer secretly recorded a fight between her and Shawn that she
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sent to her friend Chloe. Now, you can't see much in the video. She sets the phone down, but Summer's sister
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identifies Shawn as the second voice. Now, the only parts I cut from this one are some silences at the beginning and
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then this brief moment where the two seem to leave the room where the phone is and you can't really make out what it
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is they're saying until they come back in. [music] And I want to give just a quick warning, I am not going to censor
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this video clip cuz I think it is important that you get the full picture unfiltered.
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Did you take the car keys? It doesn't matter. You did, didn't you? You took my car keys to keep me from
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leaving after all of that, didn't you? You don't have to be I know. You know what I want.
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The thing is You don't want to ever want to You don't ever want to like work on [ __ ] You just
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want to Shawn, treat me like [ __ ] >> stop yelling at me. You've been yelling at me for over an hour. I'm shaking.
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It's not my It's not an hour. I'm shaking. Please stop. Yeah. I didn't hit you though. It's probably
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better than I can tell you how I feel. hands around my face and squeezed and wouldn't let me go.
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I was more than willing to do you a favor until you did all of that to me. No, no, no. Can't do you a favor, Shawn.
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It's such a hard thing. You're going to give me alcohol and you're going to give
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me food. I'm not lying. And you can you can I can do all these things for me and
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you can you can wake up and take care of the kids and I can sleep and you can even offer this to take care of the kids
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some more and then I'm just going to say no. No, cuz You have been yelling at me
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and scaring me. You pushed our daughter. You won't leave me alone and now you want me to do you a favor. Yes.
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Because it's not fair. >> my daughter's outside crying because I can't have her in the house near you
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right now. What's your problem? That is my problem. >> What's your problem, buddy? Why do you
00:23:06
have to be mean to me? Does it make you feel good? You push my buttons and get this going. You get to this point. Do
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you like [ __ ] you want me to be here? YOU WANT ME TO [ __ ] BE HERE? DOES IT FEEL GOOD? DOES it feel good when you do
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this? When you like when you [ __ ] [ __ ] do this and you KNOW I CAN'T [ __ ] DO ANYTHING EXCEPT GET MAD about
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it. I can't talk to you about anything. No, you haven't. You're the problem. I am you begging you to leave me alone.
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You always make fun of me. You're like a bully. YOU'RE A LITTLE [ __ ] [clears throat] YOU THINK YOU'RE so
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[ __ ] cool. It's so funny to make fun of me AND MAKE ME FEEL LIKE [ __ ] I WANT YOU TO PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE. I'M
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[ __ ] DEPRESSED. DO YOU CARE? You don't care. YOU JUST KEEP [ __ ] WITH ME. YOU THINK IT'S OKAY.
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YOU THINK IT'S OKAY? WHY DON'T YOU [ __ ] STOP? HEY SEAN. YEAH, SEAN. YOU'RE A PIECE OF
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YOU'RE A PIECE of [ __ ] Let me just [ __ ] with you a little more. You [ __ ] take
00:24:06
this and that and this. Let me know. Sean. That one sucks. That one sucks, too. You suck.
00:24:14
AND WHO'S CALLING IT? YOU. BECAUSE YOU CAN'T BE NICE. I'm going to go. I'm going to go.
00:24:21
Something I need you to a favor before you go. That's what's causing this. No, you know what? That's what's causing
00:24:29
this. It's not causing this. You're freaking out because you see I'm not going to get
00:24:34
you your pot. You're having a severe meltdown. I'm asking you so many times to leave me
00:24:41
alone. I tell you I'm shaky. I tell you our daughter's outside in the cold freezing because she's too terrified to
00:24:47
be inside with you and you can't even go in your room and shut the door for a few
00:24:50
minutes. You're just going to keep yelling at me. How do you think you're going to bully
00:24:54
me into doing this? Just No, I'm just so tired. And I know you're not going to [ __ ] get it. You see a minute. I can
00:25:00
be [ __ ] by myself all alone again. And all I was trying to do is HAVE A GOOD DAY.
00:25:07
SEAN, >> [laughter] >> PLEASE GO IN YOUR ROOM FOR A MINUTE. AUTUMN'S STILL watching you. All I
00:25:14
wanted to have a good day, but you [ __ ] [ __ ] it up. Okay, yes, I know. I'm the [ __ ] [ __ ] I've heard
00:25:19
it a million times. I hate it when you keep [ __ ] with me. I hate when you tell her to stop me. I
00:25:24
don't care about you. You're beautiful. This is not about that. You're Now Autumn's going to start crying.
00:25:30
Please. >> [laughter] >> This and more was par for the course. Summer told her friends and noted on
00:25:44
official court documents that Sean would put his hands around her neck or cover her nose and mouth with his hand. And in
00:25:50
that video of Autumn, you have her saying dad went after her neck, too. >> Mhm. Now, we don't know if Summer asked
00:25:56
Autumn to say those things in the video about her dad squeezing her neck, and we
00:26:01
can't ask. But this behavior, even if it was just against Summer, is deeply concerning. I mean, he may have said he
00:26:09
was sorry, that it would never happen again. We asked Sean about all three videos directly and the abuse
00:26:17
allegations Summer made to her friends, but he wouldn't comment. He also didn't comment on if he'd ever been physically
00:26:23
violent with the kids. But we obtained police records showing that Summer called the cops on him in January of
00:26:29
2022. She told police that Sean pinned her against the wall and shook her head from side to side. So, Sean was
00:26:37
arrested, charged with domestic battery, [music] and then in March 2022, Summer got a protective order against him. And
00:26:44
I assume all of this is public record? Like, where was this in the police files? Yeah, so the arrest and domestic
00:26:51
battery charge is public record. Police knew about it, and Shawn even referenced
00:26:56
it in their first interview. He told detectives that he was living in the little coach house behind the main house
00:27:01
because of the whole protective order thing. But, remember, police didn't talk to her
00:27:06
family or anything, or at least they didn't include that in the reports that we have.
00:27:11
>> But, you still know this man is charged with abusing her. And she's gotten an
00:27:15
open case against him, and she's just about to leave him when she and her kids suddenly die. Which is why I assume they
00:27:23
worked so hard to establish his alibi. But, two little points of clarity. Number one, it's unclear if Shawn knew
00:27:33
that she was actually going to be leaving for good. So, a lot of the people knew that she was going to be
00:27:38
spending the evening of March 7th packing up [music] for a trip that her and the kids were going to go on on the
00:27:43
8th. >> Mhm. She told a few friends and family, including Shawn, that this was just like
00:27:47
a temporary thing though, that she was just going to care for a good friend in Oregon who'd gotten diagnosed with
00:27:53
cancer. And that part was true. Her friend's name was Chloe Boyle. And Summer had like booked Airbnbs along the
00:27:58
route to Oregon. She even wrote her kids' school saying that they would be away for 3 weeks due to a family
00:28:02
emergency. >> Mhm. But, it was after Summer died that Chloe reached out to her family to tell
00:28:08
them the full plan. That Summer was coming to help, sure, yes, but she did not think Summer intended to go home.
00:28:15
She wasn't making the trip just because she was a good friend. She said that Summer had been planning this for
00:28:20
months. She had gotten her tax return. She'd gotten some cash. She was going to take the kids and leave Shawn and move
00:28:27
in with her. So, that's thing one. Number two, yes, she had an active case against him,
00:28:35
but guess what? Those charges all got dropped after the fire in March 2023. So, none of this answers the logistical
00:28:45
questions we had earlier. Like, not how did this fire get started, but the why? I mean, was it an accident? Purposeful?
00:28:53
I mean, this is timing that literal research says should not be ignored. >> Right. And yet, this case is a closed
00:29:01
case. The city of Chicago couldn't tell us how the fire started. So, we hired our own arson expert to take a
00:29:10
look and tell us what he sees. His name is Dale Risen of Risen Fire Consultants.
00:29:16
This guy's investigated over 1,200 fires in his career, so he knows what he's talking about. And right away, when Dale
00:29:23
looked at the photos of the kitchen, he says that it is pretty obvious what likely caused this fire. He's not super
00:29:32
interested in the water cooler or its extension cord going into the wall outlet. He hones right in on that pot
00:29:40
sitting on the stove, [music] the one still standing upright on the back burner. Dale said that he can't be
00:29:46
certain without doing any tests, but based on his experience, that pot shows signs of a greasy or oily substance. So,
00:29:54
he thinks that whatever was in this pot was heated to a boil that bubbled over the side. And when it reached a flash
00:30:02
point, it then caught the ceiling on fire and spread into the [music] attic from there, emitting toxic levels of
00:30:09
black smoke throughout the house. >> they test for that? They could, but there's nothing in the report saying
00:30:15
they did. So, we can't be 100% sure that's what happened. But based on everything he's seen, past and present,
00:30:23
and looking at these scene pictures, which we do have, Dale is pretty sure that there was oil in that pot. How long
00:30:31
would it have needed to heat up before it caught fire? Well, quicker than you'd think. So, Dale said that it it depends
00:30:37
on what type of oil it was and like how much was in the pot. Something like new canola oil could flash in a matter of me
00:30:45
10 minutes and if it was reused oil, it'd be even quicker. So, when you put this in terms of a timeline, just like
00:30:52
reorient us, the 911 call about the fire comes at 9:09 p.m. >> Mhm. Based on the conditions, they believe
00:31:01
that the fire started some 20 to 30 minutes before that call, tops. Then, say it was this oil scenario, you need
00:31:09
10 minutes for that. Someone starts heating the oil around 8:30-ish, maybe. And I think this
00:31:17
scenario rules out an accident because of something like Ezra did. He might accidentally play with the knobs, but
00:31:23
he's not filling a pot with oil. Like, that's just not happening. And I don't think it's something that just gets left
00:31:29
out on the stove. >> I mean, I know some people might leave it out if they're like very into deep
00:31:34
frying things. I mean, you deep fry things, but you don't leave a pot of oil out, right?
00:31:38
>> of smells. Like, you don't want that out. >> Yeah, and I don't think Summer specifically would leave something like
00:31:43
that out knowing that Ezra played with the knobs. You mean, you never know, but we actually asked Summer's mom,
00:31:51
Maria, about this and she told us that Summer wasn't into deep frying. She was pretty adamant about cooking healthy for
00:31:56
her kids. And she even remembers giving Summer an air fryer as a housewarming gift. I have an air fryer, like so much
00:32:03
easier, so much cleaner. I don't use anything else. >> yeah. >> Yeah. All that to say,
00:32:08
it is a scenario where she put oil on the stove is still not impossible, though. And
00:32:13
that's like a cooking situation. So, what time was dinner? She's got little kids. I don't personally see her
00:32:20
whipping up a labor-intensive, like deep-fried meal for them at 8:30. That's, in my opinion, like
00:32:26
bedtime range for little kids. >> Yeah, and when you think about it, they're all in their respective sleeping
00:32:32
areas when the fire happens anyway, right? Like, to me, if this is an accident where she was going to make
00:32:38
something and then like fell asleep and forgot about it, then maybe it was like just something for herself, a late-night
00:32:44
[music] snack. But, we kind of played this scenario out with Dale like suggesting that, and that's when he
00:32:50
pointed to something else from the scene photos in Summer's bedroom. He said, "There is what looks to be a recently
00:32:57
made sandwich on her bedside table." Which is like right there, you can see it clear as day when you look at the
00:33:03
photos. And I know that's not exactly evidence, but it's like But it's very curious.
00:33:08
>> Yeah. So, if she wasn't making something to eat, why would there be a pot of hot oil on
00:33:14
the stove? Uh well, we asked Dale that, and he's like, "Well, listen, as someone who knows about fires,
00:33:23
if you wanted to make a fire look like an accident, a pot of oil is one of the best ways to do it.
00:33:32
You just set the oil on high heat and walk away. If no one is around to catch the blaze right away, or the smoke
00:33:39
detectors don't alert people in the house loud enough or fast enough, it's over before you know it. Though, that is
00:33:47
assuming you have working smoke detectors in your house, which we assumed the Day-Stewart house
00:33:53
would have, right? >> Yeah, Shawn's a literal fireman. Well, >> [music] >> we were shocked with what we found.
00:34:05
Something that continued to nag our reporter Jen and me is how the family died of smoke inhalation before they
00:34:14
could get out of the house. I mean, this wasn't a huge house. Even if the kids had been put to bed before the fire
00:34:20
started around 8:30, 8:40, how hadn't the smoke alarms woken anyone up? Well, the first answer is that there may not
00:34:30
have been enough. According to Shawn in a court affidavit, there were two smoke detectors in the house. One on the
00:34:37
second floor in the hallway and a second one in the hallway right by the kitchen.
00:34:42
And he also had one carbon monoxide detector in his basement. All of these were the brand Kidde. And let me read
00:34:49
you this from the CFD response report. It reads, quote, "Smoke detectors were observed and heard alerting in the
00:34:57
structure during suppression and the investigation, particularly sounding on the second floor." End quote.
00:35:05
But there's something up with all of this, especially with the smoke detector on the first floor. You see, after the
00:35:12
fires, Shawn sued Kidde, the manufacturer of the smoke alarms and the CO detector. He alleges that the smoke
00:35:19
alarms didn't alert at all. The report said they heard an alarm noise. >> Right. I mean, they even call out the
00:35:27
one upstairs. So, I don't know how that plays into his allegations. But he basically says that his family was
00:35:34
sleeping and they should have woken up, but the alarms failed. Now, maybe we're all saying the same thing, kind of. It's
00:35:40
very possible that the alarms didn't go off soon enough to wake them. And this is actually a very real issue and should
00:35:49
be a huge takeaway from this episode for everyone listening. There are actually two different kinds of smoke alarms.
00:35:57
You have photoelectric and ionization only. Now, luckily, turns out we have our own in-house expert on this, our
00:36:03
director of reporting, Courtney Stewart. She did this whole exposé for her former
00:36:07
newspaper on smoke alarms. >> Oh. Basically, the deal is ionization only smoke alarms detect fires with
00:36:15
flames, but they do not detect smoldering fires, which ends up causing so many unnecessary deaths.
00:36:23
You need the photoelectric ones for that. [music] Kidde has been the subject of a recent class action lawsuit for
00:36:31
advertising smoke alarms that don't alert early enough during smoldering fires. So, you guys go home, check your
00:36:38
smoke alarms. This could save your life. Yeah. So, Shawn is saying there are two
00:36:45
smoke alarms that just didn't go off or didn't go off early enough or whatever. Report says they hear at least one
00:36:50
upstairs by the time they're there. And we can see the one that is upstairs in the scene photos that we have. Where I
00:36:57
get really tripped up is this second one, the one by the kitchen where there actually would have been the biggest
00:37:05
blaze. Even if these were ionization only detectors, it should have detected it. It should have recognized the
00:37:10
flames. But, the question is was there actually one there? We can't see any evidence of it. I mean, we have
00:37:18
photos of that area of the ceiling where it should be, but it's pretty like soot-covered and fire-damaged in that
00:37:25
hallway. But, Dayall, the fire expert, said that he would still expect to see some kind of like circular impression or
00:37:33
melted plastic. >> of evidence that it had been there. >> Yeah, he expects to see that in the
00:37:37
photos. Know what he did point to, though? Two AA Kidde branded batteries found laying on the floor
00:37:46
near the kitchen. Shut up. Yeah, the fire department didn't take any photos of these. They were only in photos taken
00:37:55
after CFD went through. So, either by police investigators who came through after or maybe by an insurance company.
00:38:03
>> Mhm. Now, one of the batteries was laying in the first floor hallway, and then the
00:38:07
other one was in the first floor bathroom. And they're not just any batteries, right? They're for sure Kidde
00:38:14
brand. >> Clear as day. You can see Kidde written on the side. Okay. If there was a detector there, could
00:38:23
they have just fallen out when the alarm itself like melted? Like maybe that's why no one heard the lower level the
00:38:30
main level alarm go off? >> is what I'm saying. So, we even asked that. Dale said that the batteries
00:38:34
wouldn't just fall out like that. Like if the fire was hot enough to melt the plastic of the smoke alarm, then it was
00:38:40
also hot enough to melt the batteries. And the batteries just look like they have been like sitting there. There's
00:38:45
just there's like a layer of black soot, but they're not even like charred. They've just been through a fire, which
00:38:50
means someone took them out. I mean, that at least seems very possible. Because we
00:38:57
reached out to Kida's attorney, and they said that experts from Kida and from the
00:39:01
Chicago Fire Department did investigations and determined that the smoke alarms were operating properly.
00:39:07
But their lawsuit with Shawn is still pending, so we didn't get much more from them.
00:39:13
But the real question, I think, [music] is if someone took those batteries out, when, and who would have done that? And
00:39:22
let me answer that rhetorical question for you, because I have played this out a million ways in my head. Like scenario
00:39:29
one, someone like Summer took them out for some innocuous reason and never got around to replacing them. Or someone
00:39:36
took them out because they didn't want the alarm to go off, because they didn't want just the house to burn. They wanted
00:39:44
the people inside of the house to die. If it is scenario number two, I think there are three options. One, Summer
00:39:51
herself did this. Two, someone yet to be identified is responsible. Or three, it was Shawn. And let me walk you
00:40:01
through each theory and what works and what doesn't work. In theory number one, Summer herself did this. Dale said that
00:40:09
we have to consider what arson investigators call filicide by fire, meaning you kill your children by fire.
00:40:16
And as horrible as it is to even suggest maybe Summer was the one who set it. She
00:40:21
was the one who was home at the time. Maybe on the cusp of leaving and starting over. Like it could have seemed
00:40:27
insurmountable. But also so did staying. I mean she was clearly going through a hard time,
00:40:33
especially in the last like week or so leading up to her death. She I had to tell you this, but she had a bad fall
00:40:39
like a week before the fire. She hurt her hip and her knee because she like slipped in the basement or something.
00:40:44
There was actually this like ongoing water leak and she texted her friend Chloe and another friend that Shawn's
00:40:49
dad had given them money to fix this. Shawn ended up spending that money on weed instead.
00:40:55
So like again, like not a good situation. And then 3 days before the fire, she sent one of her friends a text
00:41:02
that said, quote, "A few things have been going on with me that have just made me want to let people know that I'm
00:41:09
thinking about them." Now what specifically those things are or were, we'll never know.
00:41:15
And all of those things I just mentioned, like all the things she had going on were probably compounded by her
00:41:21
drinking, which her sister Sarah confirmed to us that she struggled with. And we know that her alcohol levels were
00:41:27
super high that night. Maybe she just couldn't take it anymore and broke and thought that this was the
00:41:34
only way out. Every version of Summer being responsible for this, accident or otherwise, is kind of predicated on the
00:41:43
idea that she was drunk. But what if that wasn't the case? I mean she it had to have been drunk because
00:41:52
her BAC was I mean it was off the charts. >> yes, she had a high BAC. There was a lot
00:41:57
of alcohol that got into her system. I think what I'm saying is like what if she hadn't been drinking all
00:42:05
night? Okay, walk me through that then. Okay, so when When were trying to like build a timeline of Summer's last
00:42:14
movements, we actually found a friend of hers who may have been one of the last people to have had contact with her
00:42:20
before she died. And I don't know what she told us, it threw me for a bit of a loop. So this
00:42:27
woman's name is Cleo, and she says that she spoke to Summer on Facebook Messenger, like on a Facebook Messenger
00:42:33
call specifically, about an hour and a half before the fire likely started. >> Oh. Well, at that time, Cleo said that
00:42:39
Summer sounded totally normal to her, like not giving signs or not not inebriated at all, which like
00:42:47
take with a grain of salt because maybe Summer was just really good at hiding it
00:42:52
or Cleo just didn't notice, right? But in this call, Summer also told her about going to Oregon in the morning, which
00:43:00
was the first time that Cleo was hearing about this plan. So she was like surprised.
00:43:04
>> But that shows that she's still planning on leaving like 90 minutes before this
00:43:08
fire starts. Right. Summer even promised to call her from the road tomorrow. Now
00:43:13
that was the only standout thing in this call. Nothing else was like out of the ordinary. Summer seemed good. They hung
00:43:20
up. She expected to hear from her the next day. Except a half hour later, which would
00:43:27
have been 8:00 8:30, right about the time the fire would have started, Cleo told us that a Facebook message popped
00:43:37
up from Summer, and it read, "Can you call me back?" And Cleo thought it was weird, like we
00:43:43
just spoke. >> And kind of for a long time. >> And it's not like Summer tried calling
00:43:47
her back before sending that message. She just wanted Cleo to call her for some reason. But Cleo couldn't right
00:43:53
then. She said, "Listen, I'm at work, so like I'll give you a call back in like 10 when I get off." And true to her
00:43:58
word, Cleo did call back in 10 minutes, but Summer didn't answer. Cleo waited another 10 minutes, tried again, no
00:44:05
answer. So that's when Cleo fired off a message like be safe. And Cleo thinks that at the time she was calling back
00:44:14
the fire had probably already started. Okay, so 7:30 to 8-ish, she's still fully
00:44:21
planning the trip to Oregon. Mhm. Her friend talks to her, says she doesn't seem drunk. And right about the time the
00:44:28
fire started or is believed to be started, Summer sends this message to her friend that
00:44:34
says, "Hey, call me." Yeah, and like I don't think it makes much sense. No. So, okay.
00:44:41
One thing at a time. How did Summer get so drunk, like so quickly? From like this call Zero to
00:44:48
Yeah. Especially thinking that like And not in like >> Cleo isn't also saying like, "I heard
00:44:52
her drinking. She was sipping something." Like none of that is coming up. Or like like Yeah, and listen, there
00:44:57
is the option that she was drunk, but just like good at Like this was just like her her baseline.
00:45:03
>> Yeah, her baseline. Like her sister Sarah said that her tolerance was probably pretty high from like years of
00:45:08
drinking on and off. But she also said that Summer wouldn't get that drunk with the kids around.
00:45:14
Like she And that she said she had enough experience to know her limit. But here's the thing, we looked at Summer's
00:45:19
medical record and we found out that she was also prescribed a stimulant for weight loss, which is believed to mess
00:45:25
with your ability to tell how intoxicated you are. So, I don't know, maybe she'd been drinking all night like
00:45:30
building up to the level that she was at when the fire started. Which by the way,
00:45:34
we don't actually know that level exactly. We only know her level when her blood is taken at the hospital hours
00:45:41
later. So it might have actually been even higher. >> number that we have from the hospital is
00:45:45
actually in the middle of coming down. >> Yeah, but if she hadn't been drinking like all night then like then there's Is
00:45:53
there a world where she started drinking like right after Cleo called her or like
00:45:58
a little bit before? >> Mhm. And if you do the calculations there, if like all of this was in like a
00:46:02
truncated time to reach a BAC of .312 and thinking that Summer's drinking like whiskey, which was her drink of choice,
00:46:10
she would have had to have about 10 full shots in an hour. So, she basically would have had to hang up with Cleo,
00:46:16
just like knock them back one after the other. [clears throat] And I don't know,
00:46:18
it's it seems like not that she couldn't have even like hidden it or whatever, but a little bit of like a different
00:46:23
state of mind. >> cuz she's like planning this trip. She's talking to Cleo while she's doing it.
00:46:29
>> know. Now, I want to give you the big caveat to all of this. Cleo did not show
00:46:34
us evidence of these calls or messages directly. She just told us about them. Now, she also told Summer's mom, Maria,
00:46:41
about like this exact same information just a week or two after the fire back in like March of 2023. So, like the
00:46:47
information, it's actually just coming forward for us. It came forward back then. It's the same info.
00:46:52
But, we like wanted to corroborate it, right? So, we asked to see the messages on Facebook ourselves, but she said
00:46:57
she'd been locked out of her account. She couldn't provide them. So, our reporter, Jenna Bell, put her in contact
00:47:02
with someone at Meta who might have been able to help unlock the account. I know
00:47:07
that Cleo took some steps to do that, but then she just stopped responding to us.
00:47:13
Okay. Can't we get verification from Summer's side of things? Like this was through
00:47:19
Facebook, so what about Summer's Facebook? >> So, Amber, that's Summer's sister-in-law, she says that by the time
00:47:25
they like learned of this, Summer's Facebook had been put into legacy status, which happens after someone
00:47:30
dies, and then no one can access the messages. I mean, police probably could subpoena
00:47:35
it if they wanted to dig deeper. So, if this is this interaction is true, like what do you think that the call me
00:47:43
back message meant? I mean, first there is a world where it means nothing, and the timing is just wildly unfortunate.
00:47:53
Maybe she forgot to tell her something, right? If it's a scenario where this is like purposeful at the hands of Summer,
00:48:00
maybe she's like reaching out for help to like the last person she spoke with. If it was done by someone else, maybe
00:48:08
Summer was looking for help in a way that didn't seem to someone else that she was like looking for help, right?
00:48:14
Like the way that like you get out of a bad day, like hey. >> me by this time or whatever.
00:48:19
>> like get me out of this. It's like make up an emergency or whatever. >> Mhm. Which brings me to theory number
00:48:24
two. Was >> this someone else? Was someone else there? Maybe someone came over and
00:48:30
Summer felt unsafe or annoyed or something. Like not enough to call police, but enough to be like girl, call
00:48:36
me so I can have an excuse to make this person leave. The problem with this theory is that the lack of investigation
00:48:43
makes this almost impossible to prove or disprove at this point. Based on what I've been able to see, there was no
00:48:49
canvas of the neighborhood to look for security footage that might show someone coming or going from Summer's house
00:48:55
before the fire started. That same footage would also show if no one did, which would help a lot, too.
00:49:01
>> Right, the footage regardless what it shows would would be some answer. >> But we got nothing. They never collected
00:49:07
any phone records. They never mapped out a timeline of her evening. Oh, and you know what I would have loved if they had
00:49:13
done? Collected and tested the Kidde batteries for fingerprints. Like You know what? Forget collecting
00:49:20
test. The city didn't even document these in their report. We And we asked Dale, like could these have yielded
00:49:27
anything, right? Or like if we had them, like what would they even mean? >> Yeah, maybe that's why they didn't.
00:49:30
Maybe the fire would have damaged everything. >> Yeah. No. Dale said that if there was a
00:49:34
fingerprint left on the batteries that the smoke would have actually preserved the fingerprint. So, a fingerprint is
00:49:41
left because we secrete oils and the smoke would have like coated those oils. >> have given you So, we have potentially,
00:49:49
yeah, lost a crucial piece of evidence here. And if it wasn't summer, I mean the suspect pool is
00:49:56
endless cuz they didn't really dig into her life or the neighborhood. Like it it
00:50:01
could be anyone. This is Chicago. This isn't a tiny town. This could be anyone. >> anyone. But they barely looked at one
00:50:10
someone. And statistically, this one someone posed the biggest threat to her as she
00:50:16
was about to leave. So that brings me to theory number three. Sean. But Sean's on duty when the fire
00:50:25
started. And even if it was this like boiling pot of oil that you can set and leave and walk away from before it
00:50:33
starts, he is at work all day before the fire starts. Yes. But You know Crime Junkie life rule number
00:50:40
13. Always go a layer deeper. >> Right. But don't think that's an easy task because after
00:50:49
months of back and forth with lawyers, we came this close to filing a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department
00:50:56
for refusing to release the records we requested. I mean it got so bad I started to wonder what they were so
00:51:03
afraid we might see. Which of course only made me push that much harder to break through the red and blue line.
00:51:13
Sean told detectives when he was interviewed back in 2023 that on March 7th he left for work at quarter to 6:00
00:51:20
in the morning arriving for his shift at the firehouse at about 6:00 a.m. He said
00:51:24
that he was assigned as the cook for the firehouse that day. So he left the station at 8:00 a.m. to go to a grocery
00:51:30
store called Jerry's Fruit and Garden and then to another place called Tony's, both in a village named Niles. And how
00:51:37
far are these grocery stores from the house? They're like 10 miles apart in total. Like pretty far in the opposite
00:51:43
direction from his house. >> Okay. But Sean never specifies when he gets back to the firehouse.
00:51:50
And surely the detectives got a firm time for when others saw Shawn get back to the firehouse.
00:51:56
>> the only work that they did was confirming his alibi. Nope. All the other firefighters say something to the
00:52:01
effect of like Shawn got back a short time later. So, he says he spends the rest of the day cooking and doing drills
00:52:09
with his crew until he hears this call come over the radio about the fire at 9:00 p.m. The battalion chief and all of
00:52:16
the firefighters on duty that day back up Shawn's story. And each statement is almost identical. Same beats, same
00:52:23
times. It's actually not surprising though. So, Dale said that if firefighters have to
00:52:28
give statements, they basically just like read off the call log and make sure everyone's saying the same thing. The
00:52:33
detective says in his notes that he collected surveillance video from one of the grocery stores that aligns with what
00:52:39
everyone is saying. The footage was from Jerry's Fruit and Garden and his report
00:52:44
says that the footage shows Shawn the morning of the fire going into the store at 8:29 a.m. and then leaving with
00:52:50
groceries at 8:47 a.m. Now, this video wasn't included with our initial records request.
00:52:57
And we wanted to see it for ourselves because like honestly the thing that we were looking at is like the tiniest typo
00:53:03
in this account would have huge consequences. If we're talking a.m. this is no big
00:53:10
deal, right? But if God forbid someone got it wrong and he went shopping at around 8:30 p.m. It would change
00:53:17
everything. >> why we had to be sure. Especially when Summer's mom Maria told us something
00:53:24
wild. She said that after the fire she got a lawyer to potentially pursue a wrongful death suit against Shawn. She
00:53:31
ended up dropping it just out of like sheer emotional exhaustion, but she told us that her lawyer spoke to an insurance
00:53:38
investigator and was told that Shawn went to a different grocery store in the evening. What? Yeah, and knowing how
00:53:46
important that is, Maria asked the lead CPD investigator, who's like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, it was the morning." So,
00:53:52
then she goes back, followed up with her lawyer, and the lawyer doubled down. He's like, "No, this was the evening."
00:53:59
Now, we tried to reach this lawyer for comment or to like get this story from the horse's mouth, right? But he didn't
00:54:04
return our calls or messages. So, we made getting this video and seeing it for ourselves like our whole
00:54:11
mission. [laughter] Our reporter Jen Foia'd the Chicago police for this video, and then waited,
00:54:17
and then waited. And like, by law, they're supposed to respond within a specific time frame.
00:54:24
>> Yeah. So, when they were like more than a month delinquent, she looped in our
00:54:28
legal counsel, and we contacted CPD and were like, "Hey, like, what's the deal, guys? Like, are you going to give us
00:54:34
this video or what?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Here you go." And Britt, they sent us three videos
00:54:41
that were completely blurred out. Like, I mean, you couldn't see the date, you couldn't see the timestamp, you couldn't
00:54:47
tell what grocery store this was, like time, date, like or critically, who was in the video.
00:54:53
So, we went back and forth three times, and each time they would like send us the video again with like fewer things
00:55:02
blurred. But even after like version two or three, we were like still getting videos where the person that they say is
00:55:08
Shawn was blurred. And CPD were like, "Oh, you know, we're doing this because we're concerned about the person, like
00:55:14
the person in the video, their right to privacy." And we're like, "No, yeah, for
00:55:17
sure, but like CPD already named Shawn in the police report that you made public to us, so"
00:55:24
we had to like ask for an official review by the office of the Illinois Attorney General. And then, fourth
00:55:31
time's a charm, I guess. Nearly 5 months into our legal back and forth, We won. We got the videos totally unredacted.
00:55:40
And I don't know, I was convinced there was going to be some big bombshell on it.
00:55:45
But it shows exactly what the police report said. There is a person in a Chicago fire uniform who looks a lot
00:55:51
like Shawn in the grocery store on March 7th, 2023 in the morning. And even if the timestamp was wrong for whatever
00:55:58
reason, I mean, you can clearly see daylight coming through the windows. So, I have no idea why it was so
00:56:04
difficult to get this video unredacted. It's either the red tape that burns a hole through our tax dollars or maybe
00:56:12
they were afraid that it would shine an even bigger light on the fact that the rules weren't being followed.
00:56:18
And what could that imply? Apparently, leaving a post is actually against CFD's mandate unless there is an emergency
00:56:26
callout. I mean, it is black and white. But a fellow Chicago firefighter told police, as documented in their reports,
00:56:32
that it was totally normal for a person on cook duty to leave the station, go buy groceries. So, the question is like,
00:56:39
are they covering for him or are they just like way too loose with the rules over at CFD? The same can be asked about
00:56:46
this whole investigation and why CFD and CPD even had it in the first place. I mean, this when you think about it, like
00:56:54
take a step back, for them to be investigating this is a huge conflict of interest.
00:56:59
>> Oh. Yeah. According to Illinois' own policy, the city of Chicago should have called in a state fire marshal to do
00:57:06
this investigation right away because it checked not one, not two, but three boxes on the response criteria. The fire
00:57:14
involved a death or serious injury, check. >> Mhm. Local authorities can't determine
00:57:19
the cause or origin of the fire, check. Or would otherwise be a conflict of interest for the local agency
00:57:25
investigating. Big check. Big check. John was an active Chicago firefighter. I mean, you don't have to be a stickler
00:57:32
for the rules to see how a fire department might have trouble remaining unbiased when investigating one of their
00:57:37
own. So, there should have been some independent agency in charge here. Dale says it should have been either the
00:57:43
Illinois fire marshal or the ATF, which is like a federal bureau that sometimes investigates arson cases.
00:57:48
>> But none of that happened. No. The only investigations that were done here were
00:57:52
by the city fire and police. And we reached out to CFD and asked them why this didn't happen, and they had no
00:57:59
comment. I'm sorry. To me, it's still a conflict of interest across the board. And on like with the protection order,
00:58:05
like they drove him to this place where he's not even supposed to be, right? Well, so okay, quickly with the
00:58:11
protection order. So, when he got arrested back in 2022 and she got the order against him, right? So, yeah, they
00:58:17
they know about it. They're driving him there. There was an internal affairs investigation on Sean.
00:58:21
That inquiry was like completely closed before all of this. And when they like looked into it, his department, they
00:58:27
basically said they agree that his conduct and all that like was wasn't a good look for CFD.
00:58:33
But it doesn't say that any disciplinary action was taken. And to go back to your
00:58:37
thing about conflict, I still think there's a conflict of interest, but I don't think like this is an example of
00:58:41
it cuz the protection order that they knew about, and it's the only one, that allowed Sean to be on the property
00:58:48
whenever he wanted unless he was intoxicated, which he just came from work, he's not.
00:58:53
>> him the whole time, right? >> Right. So, it wasn't a violation or anything for the chief to drive him
00:58:58
there the night of the fire. >> Okay. And he was also allowed contact with Summer as long as it wasn't
00:59:04
unlawful. So, he's allowed to be there, he's allowed to show up. I mean, technically he's
00:59:09
even allowed to give Summer CPR, which he did. >> I kind of forgot that happened.
00:59:14
>> Yeah, so not not a violation of the order, but it like I don't know, it might be an ethical issue, right? I
00:59:21
mean, especially like when you think about contamination and like he's the husband.
00:59:25
We asked CFD if they like knew like officially knew about the protection order and what they thought of it and
00:59:30
they said no comment. Oh, but get this. Speaking of Shawn giving Summer CPR, Dale looked at Summer's autopsy and
00:59:39
found that she had a fractured sternum and four broken ribs and he says, "That's not right if you're doing CPR
00:59:46
correctly." >> Mhm. It is a possible sign of excessive force. Now, Shawn is a trained EMT. He
00:59:54
knew how to do CPR correctly. >> Yeah. Now, Dale said, "Maybe the emotion of the situation might have gotten to
01:00:00
him. Maybe he didn't realize how hard he was pushing on her chest or maybe it was
01:00:06
something more." Okay, but to believe both of these agencies are protecting a guy with an
01:00:13
active order of protection against him for abusing his wife, that's a stretch, right? It happened
01:00:20
before. We found an October 2020 article from CBS News Chicago about a Chicago firefighter who left his station and
01:00:30
according to him, accidentally ran over his wife and killed her. And then his crew lied about him leaving and then
01:00:37
someone changed the time card illegally to cover it up. >> What? Yeah, and get this. CBS reporter
01:00:43
Dana Kozlov, who broke this story, confirmed with us that the firefighter who ran over his wife worked at Engine
01:00:50
91. And Shawn actually worked at that same firehouse before. It's not the one he was at the day of the fire. That was
01:00:59
Engine 119. But according to the internal affairs report, Engine 91 is where he was working back in January of
01:01:06
2022. Now, we tried to get confirmation from Chicago Fire on whether he was fully transferred to another engine
01:01:13
station whatever or if he was just like visiting that station for duty on that day, but the personnel records that we
01:01:20
asked for are still pending. So, all of that to say is there is a precedent for the most wild theory here. And though we
01:01:29
can't prove that someone else was involved in the fire, I think I've proven today that this needs another
01:01:34
investigation. >> Oh, definitely. >> An agency without conflict should step in and use subpoena power to get phone
01:01:41
records. I mean, we know there were a number of insurance investigations done. There needs to be some subpoena power to
01:01:48
get that data. I mean, I would want to know if Shon and Summer spoke that day on the phone. Or what Summer was doing
01:01:55
on her phone the day of the fire. I would want to know if there's video footage from [music] the neighborhood or
01:02:01
the fire station itself. All of this could be answered and put to bed with a proper police investigation. We reached
01:02:11
out to the Chicago Police Department and Cook County State's Attorney's Office for comment and as of this recording,
01:02:16
both agencies have not replied. And of course, we tried to ask Shon himself what he has to say about all of this.
01:02:25
And though he had no comment on some other things earlier, he did write something back that I'm going to have
01:02:29
you read, Brett. He wrote back, quote, "I don't want to interview. Personally, I don't think it would help
01:02:36
change the minds of the people accusing me. I do hope that they find closure. If
01:02:41
opening up the case and reinvestigating gives them that opportunity, then it is worth it.
01:02:47
I miss my family every day. I regret. I think about things that could have done differently. I cry a lot.
01:02:55
This whole situation is bad. I wish I had the power to change it. I can't though.
01:03:01
All I can do is to keep working on myself." We put all the hard questions to Shon in
01:03:07
an email. We asked if he ever abused his wife or his children, where he was the evening of March 7th, and just like
01:03:14
point-blank asked him if he set the fire or asked someone else to set the fire, and he declined to address any of those.
01:03:22
Instead, he said, quote, "If someone keeps picking at a wound, will it ever heal?"
01:03:28
As of this recording, Walter Sean Stewart has not been implicated in any misconduct or charged with any crime in
01:03:35
the deaths of Summer Day or his children. Last we heard, Sean is on extended leave
01:03:41
from the Chicago Fire Department. We were told hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised for him by the fire
01:03:46
department before Summer's family asked them to shut down the online donations, which they did. Now, we weren't able to
01:03:52
get an exact figure, but Summer's sister-in-law told us that CFD raised almost half a million dollars. Although,
01:03:57
we can't confirm the money actually made it to Sean. We also don't know if Sean received any
01:04:02
insurance claim payouts. As of now, Sean still owns the home on Rutherford Avenue. No matter what actually happened
01:04:11
the night of the fire, this family deserved more. Summer, who was a great friend and who
01:04:16
loved her kids so much. Autumn, who had a zillion stuffed animals and called them all her babies.
01:04:23
Ezra, who really liked to look at leaves in the park. And Emery, who was just a little bubbly baby boy.
01:04:30
They all deserved more from the people who are supposed to protect and serve. Their dad included. It breaks my heart
01:04:37
that just as Summer was about to do the hardest thing imaginable, to leave the man she claimed abused her, her house,
01:04:44
her life, and her children's lives, their futures, all went up in smoke. We asked [music] Maria, Summer's mom, if
01:04:50
she had any final words that she wanted us to close out this episode with. And this is what she wrote to us.
01:04:56
God saw everything, and God can read the heart. I believe I will see Summer and the kids
01:05:02
again in the resurrection, >> [music] >> and they will be alive and safe and healthy then. But in the meantime, I
01:05:07
miss them so much, too much. There are days when I cannot function, [music] when I don't even leave my apartment.
01:05:14
There are days when I just cry on and off through the day. It is said that time heals all wounds.
01:05:21
That is not true. The more time that goes by, the more I miss them. If you have any information about the
01:05:28
deaths of Summer Day, Autumn Day Stewart, Ezra Day Stewart, and Emery Day Stewart, please contact us
01:05:34
[email protected]. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website
01:05:39
crimejunkie.com. >> And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next
01:05:44
week with a brand new episode.